SOUTH AND NORTH;
OR,
IMPRESSIONS RECEIVED DURING A TRIP TO CUBA AND
THE SOUTH.
BY JOHN S. C.B
"FOR freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."
NASS-USTEh:
B B E Y & A1 E3 0 T,
119 NASSAU STREET.
1 8 6 0.
i
ABBOTT. 
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
ABBEY & ABBO T,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of Newv-York.
JOitN' A. GRAY,
PRINTER & STEREOTYPI.R,
16 and IS Jacob St. 
P PRE FACE.
THis book scarcely needs a preface. In my trip, I
have kept my eyes and ears open, and have recorded all
I have seen, heard and thought, which, it has appeared
to me, would interest the community, or would throw
light upon that question which now agitates our country
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Saint
Lawrence to the Gulf. I am an American citizen, and
it is my prerogative to speak frankly and freely. I love
our country, our whole country, and therefore I will not
allow any earnestness of utterance to interfere with the
spirit of conciliation and kindness.
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
FARMINGTON, MA fNE.
11. 
-1'IN,
-10-0
ill
I
,,-i
I.             1                   2,  
SOUTIHI AND NORTH.
CHAPTER I.
THE VOYAGE.
Thursday, Dec. 1, 1859.-The steamer De Soto,
on her regular trip, should have sailed at three
o'clock, yesterday P.M., for New-Orleans  via
Havana; but, in consequence of some necessary
repairs in the machinery, we were delayed
a day. As the advertised hour was three
o'clock, we took a carriage at one o'clock P.m.,
that we might avoid the great crowd ever assembling at the departure of one of these ocean
steam-ships.  At half-past one we reached the
dock. The throng was already immense, and
it took a long time before we could worm our
way through the mass of carriages, carts, horses,
6.. 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
men and piles of freight which encumbered the
wharf.
At length the carriage arrived at the foot of
the stairs, by which we were to ascend the side
of the ship. The deck of the steamer was about
as high above the wharf as the eaves of an ordinary two-story house; and an incessant crowd
was passing up and down. We threaded our
way through the multitude to seats at the stern
of the ship, and sat down to contemplate the
scene which, however familiar, is always interesting. The ship was crowded to its utmost
capacity, with passengers and their friends,
while two opposing currents were flowing incessantly in and out. A steam-engine was at
work, raising immense piles of freight, a dozen
boxes at a time, and lowering them into the
capacious hold.   The trunks  also, similarly
grouped, were rising high into the air and then
sinking to unknown depths below. At the
same time scores of men were at work upon the
paddle-wheels and the engine, hammering with
a deamening noise.
6 
THIE VOYAGE.
The whole aspect of the ship and of the wharf
was that of chaotic uproar and confusion; for
there were other ships and steamers all around
in tlie closest possible proximity: some coming,
some going, some getting up steam, some letting
it off; while the whole harbor was alive with
sailing vessels of every rig, and steamers of
every pattern and size, in numbers which I in
vain endeavored to count. Hiour after hour
thus passed away, and we seemed to be approaching  no  nearer the end of noise and
confusion.  The sun went down; darkness and
the stars came, and lamps were lighted.  Every
ship in the harbor had lanterns in the shrouds;
the streets of New-York were in a blaze of illu mination. The opposite shores of Jersey City,
Hoboken, and, far down the harbor, the hights
of Staten Island, glittered like terrestrial con stellations, actually out-rivaling the celestial clus ters which the bright moon paled.
At seven o'clockl, the ship still moored to the
whlarf, we were summoned to tea.  Capacious
as were the accommodations of the ship, it was
? 
SOUTH AND NORTII.
soon evident that there were many more passengers than could be seated at the tables. It was
found necessary to spread them twice, though
there were two tables extending along the diningsaloon, about fifty feet in length.
At ten o'clockl, the steamer left the wharf.
The night was calm and brilliant, and the light
of a waxing moon illumined the harbor.  The
sail down the bay and out of the narrows, the
canopy above twinkling with stars, and the
expanse below still more brilliant with the
myriads of gas lights beaming from Long Island,
Staten Island, Manhattan and the Jersey shore,
presented a scene which wakes up the responses
of the soul. It is now twelve o'clock at night.
The land has entirely disappeared. A few
light-houses glimmer in the distance with their
intermittent or party-colored rays, and nothing
else is to be seen but the sky above and the
ocean around. Every state-room is filled, and
the floor of the cabin is covered with sleepers
upon mattresses. I have a pleasant room on
deck, which is usually the smoking-room.  It is
8 
THE VOYAGE.
about twelve feet square, and in consequence of
the crowd of passengers, is fitted up with temporary berths. I share this room with nine
young gentlemen, most of whom are Spaniards
returning to Cuba after spending the summer at
the North.
~Friday, -Dec. 2.-Last night the wind freshened, and we have to-day what the sailors would
call a fine ten-knot breeze. The sun is bright,
and the air fresh and mild. Though far from
rough, our ship rises and falls over the oceanswell sufficiently to make almost every passenger sick. We have one hundred and eighty
passengers on board, a-d the various employ6s
of the shlip, consisting of sailors, waiters, firemen, engineers, etc., amount to one hundred
more. Thus our little floating mansion, perhaps one hundred and thirty feet long by thirty
feet wide, carries two hundred and eighty souls.
At breakfast this morning, not more than twenty
gentlemen were present, and but two ladies.
One of these ladies sat for a moment, then, as
the ship bowed gracefully over one of the waves,
J*
9 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
she turned ashy pale, and, with a tottering step,
sought her state-room.  It is hardly too much
to say that the ship has this day presented but
an aspect of misery. Pale, forlorn, woe-stricken faces meet you every where. Happy are
they who can conceal themselves in state-rooms!
Some are pillowed on the floor, some are seemingly dying upon the deck, occasionally uttering
most pathetic groans, and hurrying with reeling
footsteps to the sides of the ship. There is not
a smile to be seen. The change is marvelous
from the gayety and mirthfulness of yesterday
to the gloom of to-day.  A gentleman in condoling tones inquired of a lady how she felt.
"Ah!l" said she, looking up languidly, "is
that you? I have sounded to-day the very
lowest depthls of human misery!"
But sea-sickness, direful as is the woe, is one
of those woes which only provoke the merriment of those who are not suffering from it.
The aspect of our ship to-day would convince
any one that "traveling is one of the most painful of pleasures."  There are many children on
10 
THE VOYAGE.
board, screaming with discomfort, while their
mothers and nurses are so sick that they can
with difficulty hold up their heads.
About noon we plunged into a fog-banlk, so
dense that we could not see the length of the
ship. Though all day long, we had not seen a
sail, occasionally, while groping through this
fog-bank, the whistle was blown and the bell
rung as a safe-guard against collision. We have
been steaming along the coasts of Maryland
and Virginia about one hundred miles from
the shore.  Night at length darkened gloomily
around us. The decks were wet and slippery;
the cabins suffocatingly close, and wailing of
childIren, and still more painful utterances of
sick passengers, fell every where upon the ear.
There were few on board who did not earnestly
wish that they were at home. And yet this
was at the close of a day of unusually fine
weather.
Sattcrday, Dec. 3.-The change is marvelous!
In the night the wind died down to almost a
perfect calm. The sun rose from the mirrored
11 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
sea this morning with brilliance which can not
be described. We are in the Gulf-stream, and
it is a warm, balmy summer's day. Two or
three sails are visible in the horizon. A school
of black-fish amused us for a time with their
gambols. Early in the morning an awning was
spread over the decks to protect us from the
sun. Nearly all have recovered from their sickness, for the noble De  Soto glides along as
smoothly as if we were in a river.
One can hardly imagine a more attractive
scene than the decks now present. Groups of
gentlemen and ladies, full of joy, leave not a
space unoccupied. Children, attended by their
slave nurses, who are black as ebony, and rotund
in the most approved fashion of crinoline, are
playing with their dolls. These young nurses
are pretty girls "carved in ebony."  They are
probably selected for their good looks, as a gentleman loves to ride a handsome horse, and,
being petted with light work and kind treatment and being as well fed, and about as well
clothed as are their mistresses, they look con
12 
THE VOYAGE.
tented and happy. They evidently love the
children and the children love them. Their
lot, #hus viewed, certainly does not appear a hard
one.
These Spanish children are, many of them,
very fairy-like and beautiful, and they run
around the deck with gentleness and politeness
which seems instinctive to the race. I have
never before seen a set of passengers on shipboard so truly refined. I have not yet heard
an oath or witnessed an ungentlemanly act.
Not even a pack of cards has been seen, and
there has not been the slightest approach to
intemperance. The spirit of rowdyism, so far as
my observation extends, is almost peculiar to
Young America. There are nine young Spanish
gentlemen who occupy the room with me. We
have to be very accommodating in dressing, as
but two can dress at a time. But there has
been, thus far, the constant exhibition of as
much refinement and delicacy in word and action as the most scrupulous person could desire.
This morning, in speaking of the very gentle
13 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
manly character of our companions, to one of
our fellow-passengers, a gentleman of remarkable intelligence, and who has spent his life as
a traveler, he remarked:
"Ah! if you wish to see the difference, you
must go on board a ship of returning Californians. I have had my cheeks tingle with
shame, when traveling with foreign gentlemen
in my own country.  There is no vulgar rowdclyism in the world to be compared with that
of young Americans."
It is a lamentable fact that there is a portion
of our population, and a portion which esteems
itself as belonging to the class of gentlemen,
which seems to think that happiness can only
be foumd in noise, coarseness and destruction.
To them having a good time is to get half intoxicated, and to make night hideous with
revelry.
All the day long we have glided over a
smooth summer sea. One of the greatest pleasures of traveling consists in the number of very
agreeable companions one makes. WVe have
14 
THE VOYAGE.
found on board this ship gentlemen and ladies
of the most attractive character, with minds
highly cultivated and manners polished by extended intercourse with the world. As we were
sitting beneath the awning upon the deck today, fanuned by a balmy breeze, with the decks
crowded with peaceful and happy groups of
gentlemen, ladies, and pleasant children, I
turned to J. and said: "This is truly delicious."
Conscious that the epithet was not exactly appropriate, I could not be contented with one less
expressive. But she promptly replied: "Yes,
indeed, it is perfectly delicious."
By observation to-day at noon we were in
latitude 35~, 13', that is, a little south of Cape
Hlatteras. For some unknown cause, storms
seem to cluster around these perilous shoals
whicli shoot far out from the Cape to the very
edcge of the Gulf-streamu. Thousands of seamen
have here found a watery grave. The current
of the Gulf and the prevailing north-east winds
drive the fog-enveloped ship upon the shoals,
and there is no longer hope.  We have had
15 
SOUTHI AND NORTIH.
wonderfully pleasant weather in doubling the
Cape. The Gulf-stream here is about one hundredl miles broad, the temperature of the water
being at 760, and we have been nearly all day
crossing this "river in the sea."
As the sun went down to-night, the moon
came out from the clouds, and shone with great
but intermittent brilliance. WVe sat upon the
silent deck until a late hour enjoying the novel
scene. There was not the slightest chill in the
air, and it was a luxury to breathe. The whole
day has been one of rare enjoyment. If traveliig is sometimes the most painful of pleasures,
it is also at other times the most delightful.
16 
CHAPTER II.
TROPICAL SEAS.
Sabbath, I)ec. 4. —Another delightful day. The
sun rose brilliantly. A few fleecy clouds add
to the beauty of the sky.  A  gentle southern
breeze ripples the ocean without causing any
breaking of the waves. Our ship's company,
in quietude and external decorumn, are as observant of the Sabbath as if all were devout Christians. WVe have one aged Cuban planter on
board, eighty-eight years of age, a man of vast
wealth, his property being estimated at over
two millions of dollars.  His brother, a Mississippi planter, recently died, leaving a still greater
property. His cotton crop was often six thousand bales, which at fifty dollars a bale, the
average  price, brings in an income  of three 
SOUTH AND NORITII.
hundred thousand dollars.  Thie whole expense
of working this property was $60,000 a year.
Thus he received a net income of $240,000 per
anlnum.  Such is the argument which sustains
Slavery.
I am now writing in the cabin, which  is
about ten feet highi above the water.  The windows are all open, and the wind breathes most
gratefully through.  Groups are all around me
talking in Spanish; some walking up and down
the floor, some reclining on lounges and reading. The deck presents a still more animated
spectacle.  On the fore-deck, where the awning
has not yet been spread, it is almost insupportably hot; on the spacious after-deck, beneath
the awning, it is cool and delightful.  Perhaps
one hundred persons are assembled there, in
suchli groups as elective affinities associate. Tihe
sun is bright, the ocean smooth, and we are in
the rich enjoyment of a Sabbath which is the
"bridal of the earth and sky."
Te,lve o'cloc7 cut nig/t. —This evening has been
one such as is seldom enjoyed in a life-ti-ne.
18 
TROPICAL SEAS.
Some one has said: " I would go farther to see
a man than a mountain."  We  have had this
evening both the man and the gnountain; that is,
the beauties of nature, and the joys of intellectual converse.  As the sun sank beneath the
waves, almost immediately, without any apparent transition of twilight, we were enveloped in
the glories of one of the most brilliant of nighlts.
The moon was in the zenith. Jupiter was
beaming with its peculiarly mild lustre in the
north-east; and those familiar constellations,
which all have learned to love, the Pleiades, the
Hiyades and Orion, emerged one after another,
seemingly from the bosom of the deep; while
Sirius and Aldebaran, in rivalry strove to outshine each other. There was not the slightest
chill in the air, and the deck was filled with
groups of gentlemen and ladies, in quiet social
converse, luxuriating in the scene.
The chief joy of traveling is, with me, the
excitement of emotions which can be felt, but
not described.  The enjoyments of this evening
were of that chlaracter.  Our captain is an ex
19 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
ceedclingly agreeable man of high intellectual
culture. We have also made the acquaintance
of another gentleman on board who, in extent
of information, is not surpassed by any man I
have ever known. HIe is alike at home in
science, in the classics and in all polite literature.
He is familiar with all parts of the world, and is
also a polished genntleman, and, that which is
above all the rest, a genial Christian. Speaking half a dozen languages with as much fluency
as if they were his mother tongue, and possessing a memory marvelously retentive of all he
has seen and heard, he is one of the most agreeable companions that can be imagined.
WVe formed a little social group this evening,
five of us, consisting of the captain, our friend
MAr. C., a highly accomplished and well-informed lady, J. and myself; and hour after hour
glided away in the most delightful social communion. No book that was ever penned has
contained so charming a variety.  There was
mirth and pensiveness, sublimity and comicality,
profound philosophy and the play of fancy, his
20 
TROPICAL SEAS.
tory, biography, anecdote, tears and smiles, and
all this while gliding along over a tropical sea,
and beneath a serene sky, illumined by moon
and stars.  One does not  enjoy many  such
evenings in a life-time.  The midnight chime of
eight bells was struck before I left the deck.
Jfonday norning, Dec. 5.-We have had a sultry night, but the sea was smooth, the wind
fair, and we have been gliding on our way at
the rate of eleven miles an hour.  This morning
I arose with the sun. The sky was cloudless,
and though the fresh trade wind scarcely broke
a wave upon the ocean, our ship rose and fell
majestically over those strange billows which
sailors call a ground swell, and which poets
have spoken of as the heaving of ocean's bosom
while she sleeps.
The arrangement for meals on ship-board, is
breakfast, informally from a quarter of eight
to nine; lunch at twelve; dinner, two tables,
in consequence of the great number of passengers, first table from one to two, second from two
to three; supper at seven.
21 
SOUTII AND NORTII.
At an early hour this brighlt morning, tihe
awnings were spread, and the passengers crowded upon deck.  All the windows-of thie cabins
were thrown open, and what are called windsails were arranged to carry a current of fresh
air through the heated rooms.  It is now eleven
o'clock, and quite oppressively warm. I have
left the crowd sitting beneath the awnings on
the deck, and with no little self-denial have
come down into the cabin to add to my journal.
Seated in a chair, which is a fixture, I am writing at one of the marble tables, which also
can not be moved.  Several little chiildren are
playing around upon tile floor, talking Spanish,
and many gentlemen and ladies are seated
around the spacious saloon, some reading, and
others conversing.   Through  the state-room
windows, when the doors are left open, I can
see the sky, so bright and clear, and occasionally
catch a glimpse of a sparkling wave, as our ship
plunges through it.
This morning as I was sitting upon the deck,
a very benignant looking gentleman, apparently
22 
TROPICAL SEAS.
about sixty years of age, came and took a seat
by my side. I found him to be a Cuban planter, gentlemanly, frank, and peculiarly kind in
his feelings.  We talked for an hour, and I can
only regret that I can not record every word
which he said, just as it was uttered;  for in
such a record there could not be the slightest
violation of propriety. I can only give the substance.
He said, that for a respectable plantation in
Cuba, one needed two thousand acres of land,
and two hundred negroes.  That the laborers
would average about ten hogsheads of sugar
each, bringing a net profit of four hundred dollars, and that thus the net profits of the plantation would be $80,000. This he considered
pretty fair business.   An  able-bodied  slave
would readily bring 1500 dollars, and tlie planters generally preferred those freshly imported
from Africa to those who were natives of Cuba,
because the newly arrived Africans have less vices.
He did not seem to think slavery efficient as a
m,iss8ionary institution. As a general rule, all the
23 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
inhabitants of the Island, with the exception of
thle authorities, were in favor of the slave-trade,
as they were anxious to get as many negroes as
possible, but that he did not think it righlt to
tear the poor creatures from their homes in Africa, and that he had just been arguing  the
point with a brother planter on board.
There were, he said, many of what are called
"poor whites" upon the Island, but that there
was no suffering from poverty; that the climate
was so luxurious that but little clothing was
needed, and that a small sweet-potato patch, and
a few plantain trees would give one of these
families all they wanted.   "We have," said he,
" no winter with us, as you have, to pincli up
those people and make them work.  It is often
said," he continued, " that if the Island were to
fall into the hands of the French, or thle English, or the Americans, they would soon make
things look differently.  But I have observed
that whoever comes to our tropical climate, feels
its enervating effects, and soon becomes as indolent as any of us."
24 
TROPICAL SEAS.
This man's nature seemed to overflow with
kindness. I am sure that neither horse, nor
cow, nor slave would intentionally be treated
with any cruelty by him. But there is another
planter on board, whose property is estimated
by millions, who looks to me like a hard man.
The domestic slaves on board, who are the
waiting maids of the matrons and young ladies,
appear petted and happy; but there is one
poor girl here, black as jet, who looks forlorn
enough.
A gentleman told an anecdote yesterday, of
Andrew Jackson, which was new to me, and
quite illustrative of that frank, blunt man. The
General once invited a clergyman, for whom he
had a high regard, to dine with him.  One of
the officers, an infidel, rudely assailed the clergyman with the question:" Do you really believe,
sir, that there is such a place as hell?" General Jackson instantly interposed in a strong
voice, which arrested the attention of the whole
company.
"1, sir, believe there is such a place as hell 1"
2
25 
SOUTH AND NORTHI.
"Indeed, sir," said the officer, "and may  I
inquire on what ground you found your belief?"
"Because,"  the General replied, "if there
were no hell, there would be no appropriate
place in the future world for such persons as
you are."
And this led to an equally characteristic
anecdote respecting George Washington.   lIe
one day invited several of his staff to dine with
him. In the course of the dinner, one of the
officers uttered an oath.  WVashington struck
the table with his knife, producing instant
silence, and then said in a low, sad voice: "I
thought I had invited none but gentlemen to
dine with me to-day."
There are sad scenes on board; invalids pale
and weak, seeking a southern clime, hoping for
health, but doubtless to die. In the pleasant
afternoons they come upon deck, look pensively
upon the gay throng, try to smile, but oh! what
sadness in a smile which can not veil a sorrowstricken Iheart.  As it breezes up a little, they
26 
TROPICAL SEAS.
draw their shawls around them; the hectic flush,
the hollow cough, reveals their doom to all but
to themselves.  At an early hour they go down
to the solitude, the silence of their state-rooms.
God is there with them.  IIe sees their tears
and hears their prayers.  "May  you  die at
home," is an eastern benediction.
There is one young mother here. She has
left two babes at home with her husband, and
has with her two lovely children, a son and a
daughter of six and four. She is going to Cuba
to pass the winter; poor mother! summers and
winters will come and go, but she may never
see her New-York home again. She says that
nothing could have induced her to leave her
babes but love for them; that she must do
every thing in her power, for i'neir sakes, to prolong her life. Thus joy and sadness meet us.
In contrast there is on board a beautiful Spanish
bride, who can not have numbered more than
seventeen summers.  She is returning from her
bricldal-tour to the United States, and is full of
Shc'lth and joy.  Her young husband is devoted
27
w 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
to her; they have evidently wealth, and her
buoyancy of spirits, fluency of speech, and lively repartees, surround her with an atmosphere
of mirth.
I have had a long conversation to-day with a
lady from St. Thomas, a small but commercially
important Island, nearly a thousand miles east
from HIavana. This Island belongs to the
Danish government, and contains six hundred
thousand whites, and the same number of
blacks. About twelve years ago, these blacks,
then slaves, were all emancipated by the home
government. The white inhabitants were all
opposed to this act at the time, but she thinks
that they would not now wish to have slavery
reestablished. She gave me almost precisely
the same account of the poor blacks in St.
Thomas, which the Cuban planter gave me of
the poor whites in Cuba. The climate is so genial, and sweet potatoes and fruit so abundant,
that people can live in semi-barbaric comfort,
almost without labor. There is, however, this
difference, the poor whites in Cuba can not be
28 
TROPICAL SEAS.
induced to work for wages, but there is no difficulty in hiring the services of the blacks.
She says that the blacks are all perfectly submisive to law, that there is the kindest state of
feeling between them and the whites, and that
the idea of any danger from them, on account
of lawlessness or insurrection, never occurs to
any mind. The Island is very small, with no
large plantations. Energetic white men spend
a few years there in trade, until they accumulate a comfortable fortune, and then move to
some place where they can enjoy it. The
blacks having no strong motive for work, are a
harmless, indolent, untroubled people, religiously inclined, slumbering their years away in a
state of great contentment.
Our voyage is so delightful that I am looking
forward with regret to its close. This afternoon
and evening the whole ship's company seemed
to be assembled upon the decks. Though a
hundred miles out at sea, we were coasting
along the banks of the most majestic and extraordinary river upon the globe.
29 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
"There is a river," says M. F. Maury, "in
the ocean. In the severest droughts it never
faiils, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottoms are of cold
water, while its surface is of warm. The Gulf
of MAexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the
Arctic Seas.  It is the Gulf-Stream.   There is
in the world no other such majestic flow of
waters.  Its current is more rapid than the Mississipi or the Amazon, and its volume more
than a thousand times greater.
"Its waters, as far out from the Gulf as the
Carolina coasts, are of an indigo blue. They
are so distinctly marked, that their line of junction with the common sea-water, may be traced
by the eye.  Often one half of the vessel may be
seen floating in the Gulf-Stream water, while
the other half is in common water of the sea."
We  have crossed this magnificent  stream
where  it was  about  one hundred  miles in
breadth, and are now coasting down its eastern
shores, that we may avoid the flow of its central current. The deep ultra-marine of the
30 
TROPICAL SEAS.
pelagic river, stands in marked contrast with
the almost prairie-green of the ocean through
which this mysterious flood is poured.
All have seemed reluctant, this balmy night,
to retire to the hot cabins. The moon is nearly
full, and the most gorgeous of the constellations
look down upon us from these tropic skies.
We expect to make the light upon Great Isaacs,
a vast rock emerging from the great Bahama
banks, at twelve o'clock at night.  As this will
be the first land we make since leaving NewYork, I am anxious to see it, and, if possible, in
the bright moonlight, to catch a view of the
long line of rocks, the tops of oceanic mountains, which we  skirt for many  leagues.  I
therefore now  "turn in," to be called up at
twelve o'clock.
Tuesda-y morning, Dec. 6.-We  have another
bribght and sunny day.  The trade winds blowing freshly from the north-east, fill our sails,
and the steamer rises over and plunges through
the waves gloriously, with the speed of a racehorse, dashing the billows in broad furrows of
31 
SOUTI  AND  NORTH.
foam from her bows.  It is half-past ten o'clock
A.M.  The canvas awning covers the spacious
after-deck, and more than a hundred persons
are clustered beneath it. We have three nuns
on board, sisters of the Sacred Heart, in their
antique ungainly costume. Two of them are
young and pretty, and evidently as vain of
their accoutrements as ever was city belle of
her Parisian trousseau. They are very plump,
and in such good condition of rubicund cheek
and embonpoint, as to prove that neither vigils
nor penance are hard upon the flesh. The fare
of the anchorite must certainly be very nutritious. A lady of our party, who has been to
Rome, seen the Pope, and touched, though not
kissed the brazen toe, quite won the heart of
one of these sisters by her narrative.  "But I
should think," said the lady to the pretty little
nun, "it would be very hard for you to do the
very toilsome work of the nunnery."
"'I assure you, madam," said the sister,
twirling her prayer-book, and with a pout
which would have honored any drawing-roomn
71
32 
TROPICAL SEAS.
in Fifth Avenue, "that these hands never did
any other work than to decorate thle altar."
"Are you sisters of charity!" asked  the
lady very innocently.
"Sisters of charity!" she replied, " no!" and
then, as if worldly ambition was becoming too
triumphant, she said: "I am afraid I am not
good enough to be a sister of charity, they have
so much to suffer and to do." Ihaving done
this penance, the young heart, true to its frail
instincts, revealed itself in the words: "We are
Ladies of the Sacred Heart!  We  belong  to
the Society of Jesus! We are the highest order
in the Church!"
Alas! for poor human nature. The pride of
aristocratic rank throbs in the bosom of the
hooded nun as warmly as it flows beneath the
diadem and the coronet. Hiow beautiful is the
religion of Jesus, overreaching all forms and all
creeds. " God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth." There is much in the appearance of
these simple-hearted girls to interest one.
33 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
They are young, enthusiastic, and apparently
sincere. They have their share of the ordinary
frailties of humanity. But how kind the declaration: "Like as a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, for he
knoweth our frame, he rememnbereth that we
are dust."  I can not look upon their artless,
benevolent, though complacent faces, without
feeling that they are disciples of the Saviour,
groping their way, perhaps as directly as
many others of less artificial faith, towards
heaven.
Very prettily one of them said this morning:
"I do so pity the world's people on board, they
look so troubled and care-worn. I pray for
them all the time.  But we, in the nunnery,
have nothing but peace and joy, and escape
from all temptations."
The lady was too keen-sighted not to see her
opportunity, and with softness which the nun
herself could not surpass, rejoined: "But some
must perform life's toils, and triumph over life's
temptations; and is it quite right for us to es
34 
TROPICAL SEAS.
cape from these duties, that we may find a
more easy path to heaven?"
This broadside was so sudden and unlooked
for, that our inexperienced nun, for a moment,
was quite staggered; and rather ungraciously
she beat a retreat, exclaiming, with no little
pique: " Ah! madam, you are very much mistaken if you suppose there are no trials and
sacrifices to be encountered in the nunnery."
Some one expressed surprise that they were
permitted to converse so freely with the people
of the world on board. But they replied that
they had from their ecclesiastical superiors, a
special dispensation to that end, during the voyage. It was evidently to their youthful hearts
quite a spiritual oasis in the desert of their ecclesiasticism. Like birds from the cage, they
enjoyed their hour of liberty to the utmost.
As I am now writing on the deck, with my
tablet in my lap, these worthy girls are sitting
at my side, looking very devotional, and reading their prayer-books.  Probably they are not
aware of the spirit of ostentation which may
35 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
secretly mingle with the holiest purposes of
their hearts. If God accepts no homage but
that which is perfectly pure, alas for man! But
" Hie klcnoweth our frame." May God hear the
prayers of these simple nuns, and bear them in
his loving arms to heaven.
By my side there is another group. The
prominent figures are two African nurses
Cuban slaves of Ethopia's darkest hue. They
each have a beautiful white child, of about two
years of age, in their arms. A young gentleman and lady are talking and laughing with
them, very pleasantly, without the slightest recognition of any difference in color.  Indeed, it
is by no means improbable that both of them
have nestled in the bosom of these ebon nurses,
drawing from these breasts their nourishment.
The love of the nurses for the children is manifestly hearty and sincere. Such honest smiles
and caressings can not be assumed. One of
these beautiful infant children pats the cheek
of her nurse, now one cheek, and now the
other, and now, placing a hand on each cheek,
36 
TROPICAL SEAS.
she presses her little ruby lip to the thick, dark
lips of her laugohing attendant, and kisses her
again and again, as lovingly as ever a child
embraced a mother.
My observation has ever taught me that the
African race is peculiarly loving in its nature.
We had a colored nurse for one of our children,
and that nurse still loves that child as if she
were her own.  Many who only see such a
phase of Slavery as is exhibited by the most
favored household servants, in the kindest
families, have no conception whatever of what
Slavery is, on the distant plantations, consigning millions to a state of heathenism.
37 
CHAPTER III.
CUBA.
Tuesday, Dec. 6.-At  a little past twelve
o'clock this morning, Captain B. very kindly
came to my berth, which is on deck in a room
almost adjoining his office, and informed me
that we had just made the light-house on the
Great Isaac. We had crossed the Matenilla
reef, and passed the western point of the Great
Bahama, without seeing it, as it was night, though
the distance was not such but that we might
have seen it by day. The revolving light, on
a rock just emerging from the sea, shone with a
long golden gleam over the mirrored water, and
the stars glittered in these clear tropical skies
with a brilliance which I have never seen surpassed. For two hours we paced the deck, and
they were hours of rich enjoyment. 
CUBA.
The whole day has been one of the most
lovely that ever dawned upon the tropics, and
it has passed like a dream of beauty and joy.
The deck was crowded with happy faces; the
sea was smooth and bright and sparkling; we
passed several ships under full sail, and were
interested in watching the innumerable keys Qr
mounds of rockl, emerging from  the sea, by
which we were rapidly gliding.
About five o'clock in the afternoon we caught
a glimpse of the hills of Cuba, in the vicinity of
AIatanzas.  But darkness  came before we arrived near enough to the land to discern objects
on the shore.
Wecdlesday, Dec. 7.-The night has been sultry-oppressively so.  I found it difficult to
sleep even with the door and windows of our
cabin open. I rose at four o'clock in the morning and went upon deck. There in the bright
moonlight, at hardly a stone's cast from our
steamer, lay the island Cuba, the queen of the
Antilles.  A  light-house, shining with a very
brilliant light, rose from the frowning towers
89 
SOUTH AND NORTII.
andt bastions of the Atoro Castle at the entrance
of the harbor, and the city of Havana sluinberedcl
in the silence of the undawned morning.
We  had reached the mouth of the beautiful
harbor about one o'clock, and for five hours
were compelled to "lay off and on," as the
sailors phrase it, the laws of the island not
allowing any ship to enter the harbor between
sun-set and sun-ria.  At six o'clock, just as
the sun was rising over the ramparts of the
Cabana, the De Soto gracefully entered the narrow passage, and passing between the guns of
the Moro and the Punta, glided to the centre of
the harbor, which is one of the most spacious
and beautiful in the world, and cast anchor
about a mile from the shore.
The scene whichi now opened itself to an
eye, hitherto all unused to tropical scenery and
tropical vegetation, can not be described. The
harbor was filled with vessels of every kind,
and the flags of all nations drooped at their
mast-heads.  Bugles were pealing from the ships
of war, whose vast hulks lay motionless as islands
40 
CUBA.
upon the still waters of the bay, and from the
fortresses, so massive, frowning upon the shore.
Not a breath of air was moving; not a cloud
was in the sky, and the sun shone down upon
the green surrounding hills, waving with orange
groves, cocoas, and palms, upon the red tiles of
the city, and upon the unrippled water, with an
intensity of heat which I have never known
equalled at that early hour.
Immediately upon our casting anchor, boats,
in large numbers, pushed out from the small,
low wharves, or landing places of the city; all
with awnings over their sterns, and nearly all
with masts, and sails ready to be unfurled
should any breath of wind arise.  These boats,
in structure, very much resemble the Venetian
gondola, only more clumsy in their build, and
the awnings were of coarse, soiled canvas
without any gracefulness of drapery or picturesqueness of color. I counted thirty of these
boats, at one time, approaching our ship, and
was surprised to find that the rowers were
41 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
almost invariably white men. I afterwards
learned that it is more profitable to employ the
slaves on the plantations thlan in the city, and
that it is deemed prudent to keep them separated as much as possible from white laborers.
An incautious sailor might utter words of freedom which would excite troublesome thoughts
in the bondman's breast.
The stairs were let down the ship's side, and
soon there was a large fleet waiting to convey
those who might wish to disembark to the
shore. But no one could leave until the government officials should come on board and
grant us permission; and those dignitaries,
being in no haste to cut short their breakfasts,
kept us waiting an hour. But while thus waiting there was among the boatmen no noise; no
oaths, no contention, but on the contrary much
apparent gentleness and politeness.  At length
a beautiful boat was seen approaching, with
rich decorations, beneath which were shaded on
soft cushions the government officers. These
gentlemen ascended the sides of our ship, ex
42 
CUBA.
amined the papers, pronounced all right, and
we were permitted to land.
The captain of the De Soto informed us that
he should remain at anchor until two o'clock
in the afternoon, when the ship would continue
her voyage to New-Orleans. We had thus six
hours in which to visit the city.
At eight o'clock we took one of these barges
for the shore, and seating ourselves beneath the
shade of the awning, rapidly were rowed along
among the shipping to the governmental pier,
where  the  licensed boatman  was compelled
first to carry us, that we might pay one dollar
each for permission to visit the island. The
boatman's fare was fifty cents each.  We were
so fortunate as to find in the boat with us, I
having three ladies under my charge, a gentleman, resident in Havana, who spoke Eng,lish
perfectly. He kindly aided, when we arrived
at the custom-house landing, in obtaining our
permits, and called two vola2zies, the peculiar
cab of the country, to take us to " Dominico's,"
where we expected to get some refreshments.
43 
SOUTH AND NORTHI.
All are familiar with descriptions of these
volantes. They are very comical vehicles, and
few persons ever get into them for the first
time without a hearty laugh. The established
fare is twenty cents for any distance within a
mile. We had been told that the drivers
would always impose upon foreigners if they
could.  We  rode through  the narrow paved
streets, between stone houses of the most antique and primitive architecture, for about one
eighth of a mile, until we arrived at Dominico's,
a perfect specimen of a huge, stone-floored,
Moorish inn.  When I offered the negro drivers
the fare, they both remonstrated, refusing to take
it, and jabbered away most volubly in Spanish,
not one word of which could we understand.
Not wishing to be imposed upon, I looked
around and seeing a very intelligent-looking
gentleman passing by, I addressed him, inquiring if he spoke English.
"Non, monsieur," he replied, "je suis Fran9ais."
1 then told him, in French, of my difficulty,
44 
CUBA.
and asked if I had offered the proper fare. He
assured me that I had, and turning to the
negroes denounced them severely for their intended fraud. Thanking him for his kindness
and dropping the fare into the hands of the
negroes, we entered the restaurant.
It was a large room, on a level with the
street, paved almost like the street, with a
spacious bar glittering with decanters, and with
marble tables around.  The entrance-door was
very large, so that the room seemed almost a
part of the street. There were two very pleasant-looking young gentlemen there, and, I
hardly know how, we almost instantly became
acquainted with them, found that they were
from New-York, and that they were acquainted
with our-names, exchanged cards and received
from them the most extraordinary acts of kindness. They informed us what refreshments to
call for, and then informed us that the bill was
paid; conducted us to several very interesting
places in the immediate vicinity, and  took
leave of us, as the barouche, according to ap
45 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
pointment, arrived at the door. Such attentions
to strangers in a strange land were, of course,
very gratifying.
We had engaged a very intelligent' driver
who spoke English.  Hie drove us through tihe
principal streets of the queer, antique, Spanish
city; took us to the grand cathedral; to tihe
tomb of Christopher Columbus; to the Bishop's
Garden, once the pride of the island, now going
to decay; to the palace of the governor, whose
title is Captain General; to the palaces of
several Spanish nobles, and out into the country, where we were regaled with thlie bloom of
flowers we had never before  seen,  and the
luxuriance of tropical vegetation which  rose
like an oriental vision nponl our eyes. Palm
trees, cocoas, bananas, and orange trees laden
with their golden fruit, every where met the
view. At the fruiterer's stalls we almost filled
our barouche with fruit-five large, rich, sweet
oranges for five cents; cocoa-nuts, full of their
cool, refreshing milk, which we drank luxuriously from the shiell, at tile sanme price; rich
46 
CUBA.
bunches of bananas for ten cents.  We shall
never forget this day.  Though  all say that
one soon wearies of Havana, we found so much
to interest us, so much of entire novelty, that
we regretted very much that we could not
remain a few days longer.
Some scenes we witnessed which were excessively revolting. The blacks, bare-headed
and bare-le,gged, with countenances less expressive than many a brute, seemed sunk to
the very lowest state of human debasement.
Many of them had almost lost the aspect of
humanity. Negro girls of seventeen or eighteen, that age usually so interesting, sauntered
through the streets in rags and dirt, with one
single robe, which seemed never to have entered the wash-tub, partially covering the person, exciting the deepest emotion of disgust
mingled with compassion.
But the object most revolting, and which
continues to haunt my mind, and I think will
till I die, was the aspect of the Coolies. It
seemed to mle that human miisecry could sink
47 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
no lower. Their doom is vastly worse than
that of the slaves. These wretched Chinese
are lured to leave their country, as we were
informed, with the promise that, for their
services for eight years, they should be taken,
without expense, to Cuba, be fed and clothed,
and receive four dollars a month. Thus at the
end of eight years, they would have three
hundred and eighty-four dollars.  This seems
like an immense sum to a poor Chinaman, to
whom a cent a day is a very respectable competence. Thousands are thus induced to embark. None, probably, return. They are sold
upon their arrival for about four hundred
dollars. If the owner can wear them out in
eight years, so that they die, he of course has
nothing to pay. If he can not, he sends them
to some distant plantation, or sells them again
to some one who still claims eight years' service.
They are ignorant, debased, and powerless.
There is no one to plead their cause, and their
doom is sealed. I know not what the sins of
Sodomin were, but it is safe to say that there
48 
CUBA.
could be nothing there exceeding  this iniquity.
As no females are brought, only young men
and boys, these poor wretches can have no
home and no family ties. Two hundred thousand of them, it is said, have been imported to
Cuba within the last seven years. These are
all Chinese. A likely negro will bring fifteen
hundred dollars. But these Coolies will bring
but four hundred, for though it is generally
supposed that there will be no end to their
slavery, the purchaser nominally buys merely
the privilege of employing them for eight years
at four dollars a month. The poor creatures
seem soon to awake to a sense of their helpless
and hopeless condition. Many of them commit suicide; and many in despair sicken and
die.
It is said, with how much truth I do not
know, that the East-India Coolies, taken to
the British Islands, have their rights carefully
protected  by  the British  government.   The
contracts are carefully drawn up; the Coolies
4
49 
SOUTHI AND NORTH.
are placed under the shelter of the laws, and
the provisions of the contract are firmly enforced. The arrangement in itself would be
eminently a wise one, if conducted with justice
and humanity. There is a vast over-supply
of labor in the crowded East-Indies, and a
great want of labor in the sparsely populated
West-Indies. The terms offered are fair, and
the bargain, if honestly enforced, is advantageous to both parties.  But I find it to be
the universal  impression  that  in Cuba  the
Coolie trade is merely a Chinese slave-trade
undler the most fraudulent and cruel circum
stances.
Seeing a group of several hundred of these
wretched Coolies, working in the blazing sun
upon a road, I requested our driver to take us
through them all.  Such a spectacle of misery
I never saw, or conceived of before I Nearly
all of them were naked to the waist.  They
were excessively filthy in person, and their
countenances of the most abject debasement
and joylessness. Several overseers, with lima
50 
CUBA.
ber whips in their hands, were standing beneath the shade of trees, watching them and
directing their work. It is said, however, to
be unsafe to whip them. Their religion inculcates such ideas of the dignity of the human
body,that the degradation of a blow can only
be atoned for by the death of him who strikes
it, or by the self-martyrdom of him who has
received it. If a Coolie is whipped, somebody
must die.
The mind is appalled by the contemplation
of these miseries. What is to be the doom of
these debased and fallen races? How are they
to be rescued from the tyranny of pride and
avarice, and elevated to the dignity of manhood?
They need the tenderest care and the most selfdenying toils of their more favored brothers,to
raise them, from the gulf into which they have
fallen, to that rank which  all should attain,
who were originally created "but a little lower
than the angels."  And yet their wiser and
more powerful brothers exhaust their shrewdness and energy in endeavors to rivet their
51 
SOUTH AND'NORTH.
chains and to plunge them still deeper in the
abyss.
Cuba, as God made it, with its hills and vales,
its flowers, groves, bird-songs, its fruits and
sunny skies, and verdure and salubrious clime,
is indeed the gem of the ocean. God formed
it apparently for a terrestrial paradise. But man
has made it the most corrupt and joyless spot
in the expanse of Christendom. It is the universal declaration that bribery and corruption
are the fundamental principles of the government. There is no civil liberty, and no religious toleration.  Church and State are alike
debased into mere engines of despotism.
The annexation of Cuba to the United States,
were it possible, while it would strengthen
slavery in the Senate and in the House, would
in many respects greatly weaken the institution
in the continental states. It would be the instant destruction of every sugar plantation in
Louisiana. Not one could live a year. This
island is eight hundred miles in length, and
fromin twenty-five to a hundred and thirty in
52 
CUBA.
breadth, and contains forty-three thousand
three hundred and eighty square miles. Its
whole population is about a million, nearly two
thirds of whom are slaves or free blacks. In
fertility of soil and adaptation to the culture of
sugar, the island is unequaled, and yet millions
of acres are yet unoccupied, it being estimated
that not seven per cent of the whole island is at
present brought  under  cultivation.  Annexation, removing the heavy duty now imposed
upon Cuban sugar, for the protection of the
Louisiana planter, would instantly break up
every sugar plantation in the States.  But I
understand that many of the Louisiana planters
do not object to this. They would sell their
plantations to cotton-growers. Two days' sail
would take them and their negro gangs to
Cuba. A few days' work would rear the negro
huts; and, with the skill already acquired, and
the machinery which could be easily moved,
they would recommence operations on a scale
far more favorable than ever before. On the
hill sides and in the valleys of Cuba, many
53 
SOUTIHI AND NORTII.
miles from the main land, there would be no
chance for the slaves to escape, and no sounds
from the free North could reach their ears, and
no rays of light from the sun of liberty could
penetrate their darkened eyes.
Under these circumstances we should probably see such a stampede of slaveholders, with
their slaves, to Cuba, as the world has never
seen before. The sugar plantations without
exception would be abandoned. Carolinians
and Georgians would forsake their worn-out
fields, where "fanatics" annoy them, for this
new, more inviting, and safer realm for the
institution. Slaves would be in greater demand than ever before.   The slave-breeders
on the border States would sell off their stock
with rapidity hitherto unparalleled, impelled
by the double motive of increased price, and
increased danger of escape by the "underground railroad." Thus the wave which is
sweeping the black population down towards
the Gulf of Mexico, would receive an impetus
of wonderful power. None would go to Cuba
54 
CUBA.
but determined slaveholders. The continental
States would be greatly drained. There would
be an immense accumulation on the island;
and then, alas! might come the catastrophethe reenactment of the tragedy of St. Domingo!
May God avert that awful hour.
It is barely possible that providences may be
moving in that direction. Though there are
great and obvious evils visible in the annexation of Cuba-strengthening, as it would, the
vote of slavery, and bringing a people of foreign tongue and uncongenial habits and religion, to partake with us in the responsibilities
of our government, while we are already sufficiently embarrassed with hostile and destructive influences, still it is manifest that such a
measure would tend greatly to drain the Southern States of their slaves, and would facilitate,
in the most wonderful manner, the emancipation of the border States from slave-breeding
and slave labor. If we are doomed to the evil
of this extension of American slavery, we must
accept the results to which I have alluded as in
55 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
part compensation; and we must solace ourselves with the faith, that,
"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform."
It would indeed be singular, if in this way
the dark tide of Slavery were to be setting from
our shores to a distant Island; that God, instead
of leading Lot from Sodom, should take Sodom
from Lot. God is even now moving with a
power which no earthly contrivance can resist,
in freeing Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and
Virginia from Slavery. It is as certain that
they must soon be free, as that the snows of
winter shall melt before the returning sun of
spring. Other States will then become borderStates, and will inevitably follow in the same
course. The doom of Slavery is sealed. Move
which way he may, the slaveholder loses the
game.
But, on the other hand, I find no one who
thinks it possible that Cuba can be annexed.
There are but two conceivable measures of an
56 
CUBA.
nexation, namely, purchase or seizure, and from
both of these, it is the judgment of all with
whom I converse, that we are excluded.
1. We can not purchase. Spain will not sell
at any price. Castilian pride is up. We may
just as well, so far as I could learn, attempt to
buy the Spanish province of Grenada or Estremadura. Cuba is now deemed the brightest
gem in the Spanish coronet. Spain is beginning to awake from the slumber of ages, and is
reviving in wealth and power. Within a few
years, Spain has constructed five thousand miles
of railroad; and railroads are efficient teachers
and powerful reformers. Light and vigor from
the French Court are penetrating the peninsula.
I have not yet conversed with a man who has
thought that there was any more chance that
Spain would sell Cuba, than that we would sell
the District of Columbia.  Suppose England
were to vote a few millions for the purchase of
Washington, thinking, that, as the Union is to
be dissolved, and as the North and South may
probably quarrel about the property at the
57 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
Capital, we may be willing to sell out. So far
as I can learn, Spain regards our offers to purchase Cuba in the light in which we should regard such a proposition. She resents the movement as an insult. I know nothing about the
secrets of Cabinets, but this seems to be the universal opinion as to the _purchase of Cuba.
2. We can not seize the Island. England and
France will not let us. This is understood to
be an established fact. Young America is very
plucky;  but  England,  France,  and  Spain
united, would make a troublesome foe. Our
navy is not quite strong enough to blow those
three navies out of the water. We shall not
attempt it.
Besides, we should not be united among ourselves. There is a conscience at the North which
says, seize means steal; an opinion, which declares that the motive would be the extension,
consolidation, and perpetuation of Slavery.
This the North dreads with all the power of
what the South calls fanaticism, and the North
religion.  We can not seize Cuba.  We can not
58 
CUBA.
buy. We shall continue to look wistfully at it.
That is all.
It is said that the late Captain-General of the
Island, Concha, returned to Spain with three
millions of dollars, as his perquisites, collected
during an administration of five years. All his
vast group of retainers return with him, also
proportionately  rewarded.    A  new CaptainGeneral, Sereno, and a new swarm from the
Castilian Court, have just arrived, and are now
busy filling their purses.
At 2 o'clock P.M., we returned to the ship.
The steam was up, and the paddle-wheels revolving. In a few moments we were under
weigh, and, gliding out of the beautiful harbor,
between the frowning batteries of the Moro and
the Punta, entered the open and mirrored sea.
The sun is now sinking behind a bank of
heavy clouds, ominous of a storm. The dim
outline of the Island is still visible, and will
soon be lost in the approaching darkness.
Even as I pen these lines, the short tropical
twilight has faded away, and it is night upon
59, 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
the sea.  The mountains of Cuba are dissolved
in the gloom, and my eyes will probably never
rest upon them again.  Cuba, farewell!  Thou
hast a dreadful account to render at the judgment day.  Neither Chorazin nor Bethsaida
need dread a heavier doom.
60 
CHAPTER IV.
TUE SLAVE'S CABIN, AND THE FREEMAN'S
COTTAGE.
Thursday Dec. 8.-A  stern norther rose in
the night, blowing fiercely across the current
of the Gulf, and raising that short, chopped sea,
as the sailors term it, for which the English
Channel is renowned, and which provokes the
excess of sea discomfort. Nearly all on board
were simply miserable. The gale shrieked
through the rigging; dark masses of vapor
shrouded the sky, and clouds of spray swept
the decks. The ship rolled and plunged amidst
these billows, every timber apparently creaking
with the strain, and the only place of refuge
was one's berth. I could neither read nor
write, nor remain upon the wind-swept, wave 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
washed deck. The whole day has been dark
and comfortless. Night is now around us.
We are in the middle of the Gulf, and there is
but little prospect of sleep. The suffering from
sickness, of many on board, is very severe.
Travel, surely, has its pains, as well as its plea
sures.
Frzday, Dec. 9.-A dismal night, and a dismal day. But few have ventured to the table.
Ledges are attached to confine the plates, that
they may not slide, as our ship plunges and
rolls over the billows. The day has furnished
no record, but the monotony of gloom and suffering. The wind, the clouds, the piercing
chill, and the raging waves, have made our ship
a prison, where not a joyous sight is seen, or
a pleasant sound heard, and where many a
groan falls upon thle ear.  These are the dark
days of the voyager; days of real misery, but
which are fortunately forgotten as soon as over.
Saturday, Dec. 10.-This day has been as
bright, externally and internally, as the two
preceding days have been black and woeful.
62 
SLAVE7S CABIN-FREEMAN7S COTTAGE. 63
Last evening the wind abated, the clouds dispersed, and the full moon turned night almost
into day. The Captain judged that we should
make the light-house, at the mouth of the Mississippi, at twelve o'clock at night. As I was
anxious to see the Balize where this wondrous
river pours its turbid flood into the Gulf, and
by its immense deposits, is creating leagues of
land, I arose at twelve o'clock, and went upon
the deck. There was the bright light at the
entrance of one of the four arms of the river,
beaming directly before us.
The norther, which had been blowing for
forty-eight hours, had swept, apparently, every
particle of moisture from the sky; and the
full-orbed moon, which had just passed the
zenith, shone effulgent, almost as a sun. Vast
reaches of mud-banks were all around, through
which, in pools, and channels,  and lagoons,
flowed the turbid flood of the Mississippi. A
more dismal scene can hardly be imagined;
and still it was a scene upon which the geologist must look with intensest interest. 
SOUTHI AND NORTH.
From the immense watershed of a valley,
unsurpassed by that of any other on the globe,
and from a distance of thousands of miles, this
majestic stream, with energy which never tires,
is bringing its accumulations, by millions of
cart-loads daily, to fill up the Gulf of Mexico.
We have but to wait long enough, that is, but a
few millions of years, when we shall have the
most admirable railroad plateau directly to
Cuba. The work is going on surely, and without intermission. I hope that the awful tragedy of time and sin will be brought to a close
long before those ages shall have rolled away.
There are four main channels of the river,
branching off from a point about fourteen miles
above the localities where these streams now
enter the gulf. The whole of this region is a
marsh of soft mud, here and there covered with
a rank growth of coarse grass; the surface of
the land, if it may so be called, being hardly
perceptibly above that of the sea. Upon one
of these mud-banks at the mouth, reared upon
a foundation of piles driven into the ooze, there
64 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE.  65
is a light-house, and a telegraph station, which,
on the arrival of any ship, sends the tidings a
hundred and ten miles up the river to New-Orleans.  A few dredging-steamers were also slumbering upon the mud. We fired a gun, and
screamed with all the strength of our brazenthroated engine, in the vain attempt to rouse
the telegraph-operator. But we were quite unable to turn him out in the cold morning air,
and the steamer renewing its speed, breasted
the current of the stream, and pressed on.
For nearly fifty miles, I should think, from
the mouth of the river, nothing is to be seen
but the dismal marsh, land which the river has
made, in recent ages, and so wet and spongy as
to be quite unhabitable.   These vast operations of nature, God's enginery, require ages for
their consummation.  At length we came  to
the more solid land where vegetation began to
assume the luxuriance, bloom and verdure of a
virgin world. The prairie has its beauty as
well as the mountain, and to my eye the landscape soon assumed an aspect of marvelous 
SOUTHI AND NORTH.
loveliness. The plain extended, smooth as a
floor, on each side of the river, to the forests of
live oaks and cypress, which concealed and decorated the swamps in the rear. If we say that
"distance lends enchantment to the view," it
was truly " enchantment" which distance did
lend.
The houses of the planters were generally
plain, square, substantial mansions, surrounded
with verandahs, embowered in groves of the
ever-verdant orange and live oak, and presenting an aspect of much comfort. Some of these
dwellings were of considerable architectural
beauty, though I saw none which vied with
the villas and palaces which opulence is rearing
at the North.
At a little distance from the planter's mansion, were to be seen, almost invariably, in two
parallel rows, the neat white-washed cabins of
the negroes.  We would generally count from
ten, to forty or fifty. They looked, in the distance, very neat and very pretty. They were
of one story, apparently contained but one
66 
SLAVE'S CABIN- FREEIAN'S COTTAGE.  67
room, seemed to be well guarded from the
rain, and, very frequently, had either in front
or rear, a projection of the roof, where the child-"
ren could play, or the old people sit, protected from the sun. Some ladies at my side, said:
" HIow pleasant these plantations look! How
comfortably these servants are provided for! 
Hlow can people say that the slaves are cruelly
treated!"  This is the South side view.  I have
endeavored to give it fairly.
But, in looking at this question, we must
first settle a more important one, and that is,
What is man?  Is he under any circumstances
a mere animal, formed only to toil like the
horse or the ox, and then to pass away-or is
he an immortal being, endowed with powers
capable of endless expansion, and bound here
to cultivate all his capabilities, moral, intellectual, and setthetic, to the utmost?  A horse is
treated kindly when well stabled; a pig when
well penned. But is a man treated kindly
when well cabined?  No! No!  He is heaven-born.   He has limitless faculties, he has an 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
exalted nature to be developed and cultured.
And any system which shuts him up to ignorance, which dwarfs his noblest nature, so that
he can by no possibility attain the maturity of
manhood, is cruelty in the extreme. Misfortune may curve the spine, or blind the eye, or
wither the limb, and the well-developed soul
shall move freely and joyously, and the world
shall do it homage. But when the soul itself
is palsied and imbruted, all its aspirations
crushed, and all its celestial energies paralyzed,
I can not receive the doctrine that the man is
kindly treated, because the straw on which he
sleeps is clean, and the roof which covers him
is tight, and the corn he eats is nutritious.
I enter the cabin of the slave, and say earnestly, very,  very  earnestly:  This  is not a
home for my brother man-God's child, one for
whom Christ has died. I see in many, perhaps
most cases, but one single room where, without
a shadow of delicacy, old and young, males and
females, sleep promiscuously.  Some one with a
smile, says: "Talk of the delicacy of slaves!"
68 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN S COTTAGE. 69
Alas! alas! there is none.  There is no maiden modesty, no refined manly virtue; and I
can not accept the doctrine, that when thus imbrutedcl by the most relentless and persistent
energy, the man is treated kindly, because he is
fed and clothed in a way to make him an available laborer. In the cabin of the nlegro I see
no book, no culture of taste, no thoughlt.  He
is an animal well cared for, thlat he may do
good service.
There are men at the North who will treat
their oxen and tlheir horses withl fiend-like brutality, regardless of the loss of property.
There are, of course, sucli men at the South,
beneath whose cruelty the slaves live in perpetual martyrdom. But, as a general rule, all
through the United States, beasts of burden,
whether human or mere animals,  are treated
considerately, not only out of regard to their
pecuniary value, but also through the instinctive kindness of most hearts.
Were I to take any tiller of the soil in NewEngland, to  the cabin of thle negro, show him 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
the sons and daughters of this bondage, and
say to him: "Are you willing to accept this as
your home for life, and this as the position of
your boys and girls?" with indignation he
would spurn the insulting question. Were I to
take the day-laborer, the humblest mechanic,
the barber, the waiter at a hotel, the response
would be equally prompt and energetic.
Absolutely no one believes that the bondsman
is treated well as a man, but only as a slave.
As we approached the city, the landscape became every hour more attractive; the planters'
houses fringing both sides of the stream, in
almost an unbroken village.  The soil is inexhaustible in its fertility. Soon the spires of the
city and the masts of the shipping came in
sight. Even New-York can not present so imposing a show, for the crescent form of the
river exhibits the merchant fleet, which, at this
season of the year, crowds the levee, to the
greatest possible advantage. Such an array of
steamboats, gorgeous river palaces, from inland
ports a thousand miles distant, no other city in
thie world can show.
70 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE. 71
I confess that I have but little hope of the
peaceful abolition of Slavery. It is estimated
that the cotton crop this year will amount to
four millions of bales, which, at fifty dollars a
bale, comes to two hundred millions of dollars.
The sugar crop is estimated at two hundred
and fifty thousand hogsheads, which, at seventy
dollars a hogshead, amounts to seventeen millions five hundred thousand dollars. This
makes a sum total, raised by the slaves, of two
hundred and seventeen millions five hundred
thousand dollars. This is probably all clear
gain, for enough of other things are raised, and
enough domestic service performed, to pay for
the exceedingly small expenses of the laborers.
This sum, though very small, when compared
with the industrial and agricultural products of
the North, is an immense amount of money to
be divided among the comparatively few slaveholders; only about two hundred thousand in
number. If, under these circumstances, even
those who profess to be Christians, declare the
institution to be divinely appointed, what can 
SOUTIH ANI) NORTHI.
we hope for from those who make even no pretensions to be disciples of the Saviour?
WVhile human nature remains as it is, therefore, I have but little hope of the peaceful abolition of Slavery. Two conspicuous and immensely important facts are, however, I think,
now established.  1. The North, consisting of
fifteen or sixteen millions of freemen, to but
about six millions in thle South, will not consent, under any circumstances whatever, to the
extension of this system. That battle has been
fought and the victory won.  The question is
settled forever. The South can now never
compete with the North in emigration to new
territory.   2. The  border  States, Missouri,
Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland, will soon
be drained of their slave population, and must
inevitably become Free States. This process is
now progressing with a rapidity which is accelerated every month.  The whole slave population will soon be crowded into the extreme
South.  Those who do not like Slavery, will
remove to tlhe Free States. What God will
72 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE.  73
then do, no prophet has revealed.  May  He
guide to such councils as shall arrest impending
woe.
Sunday Dec. 11.-This is the great market
day in the French quarter in New-Orleans.
As I was anxious to witness the novel scene,
which brings in a large number of plantation
negroes with their little ventures for sale, I
went clown at an early hour of the morning, to
the market.  The whole scene is most decidedly
French, and reminds one of Paris. Still I saw
very many less of the plantation negroes than I
had expected to see, and very many less than I
should have seen a few years ago. Nothing
has surprised me more in New-Orleans than the
small number of the colored population.
When the De Soto was made fast to the levee,
the wide and extended plateau was thronged
with laborers, but they were nearly all Germans or Irish. Rarely could I see a dark skin.
It was the same in the streets as we drove
through them. Upon speaking of this to a
very intelligent gentleman, he observed that
4 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
the slaves were becoming so exceedingly profitable upon the plantations, that large numbers
had been sold from the city for that purpose;
and that also it was found not well to have
them associated with free laborers, as they acquired bad notions and restless habits.
Clearly it must be so.  The cities, especially
the commercial ones, will soon be drained, and
the powerful tendency now must be to gather
the slaves upon the remote plantations, where
they can be excluded from popular view, and
no longer be agitated by the sights and the
sounds of freedom. There are many secluded
plantations now, where there are from five hundred to a thousand slaves. They are never
permitted  to  leave  the  plantation-never.
And no one is permitted to visit them from
another plantation-not one. Thus they are
buried from the world, and toil in darkness
from the cradle to the grave. If their master
chance to have a respect for religion, they re
ceive some faint religious instruction. If, as is
more probably the case, he is a mere' man of
the world, they are left to utter heathenism.
74 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMIAN'S COTTAGE.  75
In Africa some missionary might reach them.
On the plantation of an infidel master there is
no hope.
I am struck with the kindness with which
the white population address the negroes, and
the manifestly friendly relations which generally exist between the two  classes.   The
negrophobia at the North is unknown at the
South.  This afternoon I went to an African
church.  A  slave preached   a man entirely
without culture, but of very vigorous mind.
Hie clearly understood, and touchingly unfolded the plan of salvation through faith in Jesus
Christ. I have never been more deeply
impressed with the beautiful adaptation of
Christianity to the wants of the world. Clay,
Webster, Jackson, our strongest, wisest, firmest
men, have given the most emphatic utterance
to their soul's need of an atoning Saviour.
And here rises a poor slave, unlettered,
and in the darkest ignorance, so far as
human knowledge is concerned, and yet
rich in this Christian faith; and as he un 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
folds a Saviour's love, he sways the hearts of
his auditors as no other conceivable theme could
move them.  My eyes were dim with tears, as
in broken language, he spoke of patience under
life's cares, and depicted thie glory of that world
where there shall be no night, and where all
tears shall be wiped from every eye. The singing was an extempore wail, without articulate
words, such  as I never heard before from
earthly voices.
A  Southern Christian gentleman, who  accompanied me, and who sympathized with me
in every utterance of the preacher, said, as we
came out: "Many of these poor creatures will
hereafter be in Abraham's bosom, when, perhaps, some of their present owners may be
with Dives imploring a drop of water to cool
their tongues."
These slaves, aided undoubtedly by kind
Christian friends, for there is much, very much,
of true Christian sympathy with them here in
the South, have succeeded in building a church
which can not have cost less than ten thousand
76 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE. 77
dollars. It was really touching, at the close of
the service, to see so many of these young men,
born in bondage and in bondage to die, go up
through the aisle and lay their contribution of
a dime upon the table. I noticed, very accidentally, that the contribution of my Southern
friend was five dollars.
Aionday morning, Dec. 12. - This day has
been like one of the most delightful we experience in May.  With  an invigorating breeze
and bright, warm sunshine, the trees and the
shrubbery in full leaf, and the golden oranges
and limes blending with the verdure of the
gardens, the city looks beautifully. We took
a ride, up the river, this morning to Carrolton,
about  eight  miles.   The whole  distance  is
almost one continuous village of neat, homelike houses, surrounded with gardens.   Many
were very attractive.   There  is diffused  all
around the most gratifying indications of prosperity and thrift. The city itself is essentially
a free city, and all its energy is the energy of
freedom. 
SOUTII AND NORTH.
I met a Northern gentleman this morning,
and almost his first words were: "As to this
peculiar institution, I was always in favor of
slavery when in the North, and I am still more so
now that I have come South. The slaves are
much better off than the laboring classes at the
North." Noticing, perhaps, a look of surprise
on my countenance, he added: "The poor laboring classes I mean, the poor ones."
I can only say that no extent of charity can
lead me to believe that there is any sincerity in
such a declaration. Our noblest statesmen, our
most distinguished clergy, our most accomplished ladies, have often come from the homes
of the laboring class at the North. The condition of the slave, under a humane master, is
undoubtedly preferable to that of the prostitutes, vagabonds, and thieves at the Five Points
in New-York. If this be the eulogy slavery
demands, let it not be withheld. But to compare the homes of the farmers, mechanics or
day-laborers, in any village of New-England
with the cabins of the negroes, is simply absurd.
78 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE.  79
I observe in this morning's paper the following
advertisement, which penetrates the cabin of
the negro. How would such an advertisement
read in the North, sweeping with its desolation
through the homes of those with us, who
by the labor of their hands earn their daily
bread, tearing away from those homes, for
ruthless sale into slavery, fathers and mothers,
sisters and brothers:
"AUCTION.
"Tuesday,  December  20th,  at 12 o'clock,
at public auction, at the City Hlotel, without
reserve, will be sold one hundred and three
choice plantation hands; seventy-three likely
young men and boys; thirty-five women and
girls, single and in families, comprising field
hands, mechanics, and house-servants, all classing strictly No. 1. The gang will be at the
office of the auctioneers, the day previous to
the sale, for the full inspection of the public."
Mechanics, of the North, what say you! Is
your condition like this? I see by the same 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
paper that a law has just passed the Legislature
of Mississippi, declaring that all the free colored
people therein,  who  do not leave the State
by the first of next July, shall be sold into
perpetual slavery. I turn to the census and
find  that there  are  about  a thousand free
colored persons in Mississippi. Many of these
people, of remote African descent, are as white
as any persons in the State; not a few are the
sons and daughters of opulent and intelligent
planters.   And  how  are these  poor people,
guilty of no crime, to escape their awful doom;
thie most awful that cal befall a mortalslavery for themselves and their offspring forever? Here is a little family, perhaps a Christian family, consisting of father, mother, a son,
and a daughter; they are poor and friendless
and uninstructed. They must traverse on foot,
for they have no means to pay their fare in
boat or car, a distance of nearly a thousand
miles to reach a Free State.  They must run
thle gauntlet of tles Slave  States,  Alabama,
Georgia,  the Carolinas,  and Virginia,  where
80 
SLAVE'S CABI3I-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE.  81
they are liable at every step to be arrested as
fugitive slaves. When they arrive in Virginia
they are certain to be thus arrested, for the
laws imperiously require their arrest as vagabonds, if not slaves. They are thrown into
a jail and advertised as runaways. After a
few months, no one appearing to claim them,
they are sold at auction, to the highest bidder,
to pay their jail expenses! The father is sent to
Texas, the mother to Louisiana, the son to
Mississippi, and  the  daughter  to Alabama.
They can not write; lost to each other forever,
they never hear tidings of each other's fate.
Now Mississippi has passed such a law with a
population of free colored people of nearly a
thousand. Arkansas has passed a similarlawwith
a free colored population of about six hundred.
And the same law has just passed, by an overwhelming majority, the Senate of Missouri,
where there is a free colored population of over
twenty-six hundred.  Thus in the nineteenth
century, and in Christian, republican America,
more than four thousand free people, guilty of
4* 
SOUTHI AND NORTH.
no crime, and accused of no crime, must in
dismay, and through sufferings inconceivable,
force their way to a cold, distant land, where
;they have no friends, no employment, and
know not what to do -or they, and their
children, must be sold into perpetual slavery.
Was there ever any thing in the history of
nations more awful? Did tyranny ever commit a more atrocious crime? Is this not a
dreadful story to be related through the nations
of the world, respecting republican America?
There are thousands, and hundreds of thousands at the North, who feel degraded by such
acts perpetrated in our country; for in the eye
of the world we are one people; as much so as
are the English or the French. And yet you
tell us, brethren of the South, that we have no
right to express or to feel any sympathy for
these unhappy victims of oppression so dreadful. You will condemn me severely for this
expression of my sympathy; and call me, perhaps, an incendiary and fanatic; an inhuman
enemy of the South, who deserves to be hung on
82 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE.  83
the branch of the first tree that can be reached.
Brethren,  believe  me,  neither  burning  nor
hlanging can stifle this sympathy for the oppressed. We can no more help feeling and
shuddering and weeping, when we read such
tales, than the slave can help recoiling when
the brand of red-hot iron burns and smokes
upon his flesh.
And what is the excuse for this outrage so
unparalleled in the legislation of Christendom?
It is simply that this enslaving of the free is
necessary, to enable you to hold firmly four
millions more of your fellow-men, whom you
have already enslaved. Well did Jefferson,
the father of American democracy say, and his
words are worthy of being pondered:
"Can the liberties of a nation be thought
secure, when we have removed their only firm
basis: a conviction in the minds of the people
that these liberties are the gift of God? that
they are not to be violated but by his wrath?
Indeed I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just; that his justice can not 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature
and natural means only, a revolution of the
wheel of fortune, an exchange of situations is
among possible events; that it may become
probable, by supernatural  interference.   The
Almighty has no attribute which can take sides
with us in such a contest."
Again he says in view of this most execrable
system of despotism the world has ever known,
and to which democratic America clings with
deathless tenacity:
"What an incomprehensible machine is man!
who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his
own liberty; and the next moment be deaf to
all those motives whose power supported him
through his trial, and inflict on his fellow-man
a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with
more misery than ages of that which he rose in
rebellion to oppose."
It is difficult. for me to account for such a
state of public opinion as will tolerate legislation so utterly infamous.   Tell the story in
8~ 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE. 805
England and every heart in the island will
shudder with horror;  and thousands will be
incredulous, and say it can not possibly be true.
Tell it in France, in Prussia, in Germany, in
Italy, and every where it will awaken a cry of
surprise, of grief, of execration. There will be
but one thought, and that will be that those
States which can pass such enactments not only
are lapsing, but have already lapsed into utter
barbarism.
And yet, strangely, I do not meet this spirit
any where in the homes I visit. Who are
these legislators?  Where do they come from?
WVho are their constituents? I meet with no
one here in the South, who does not regard
such legislation essentially as I regard it-who
will not say that it is inhuman and unpardonable. Never have I met more fervent and
earnest piety than I am continually meeting at
the South.
I should like to live with this people as I
meet them. They seem kind, generous, warmhearted. I constantly see indications of genu 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
inc sympathy with the colored race, such as I
rarely see at the North. I find Christians here,
and those not few in number, as devoted and
as self-denying as any who can be found on
earth. And yet such a law as that which has
recently passed the Legislature of Mississippi,
and by an overwhelming majority, and which
has been enacted by a similar majority in
Arkansas, and which has also passed the Senate
of Missouri, is simply infternal.
Perhaps one explanation is found in the
fact that I frequently hear Christians say
here: "I am disgusted with politics, and for
years have had nothing to do with them." Is
it possible that the worst part of the slaveholders, with bowie-knives and revolvers, have
over-awed the conscientious portion of the
community and taken the affairs of state into
their own hands? That they edit the papers,
attend the conventions, fill the legislative halls,
and send their own men to Congress? If it be
so, our Southern brethren have made a terrible
mistake, and should break these fetters with
86 
SLAVE'S CABIN-FREEMAN'S COTTAGE.  87
which they have allowed themselves to be
bound.   The  hopes  of  republican liberty
throughout the world depend upon the success
of this Republic. If we fail, farewell to popular freedom. The Christian can have no more
imperious duty than his political duties-he
can make no mistake more disastrous to the
hopes of the world, than to surrender the administration of this government to Satan's employe6s. 
CHAPTER V.
DEVELOPMENTS: SOCIAL, PIHIILOSOPIHICAL, AND
POLITICAL.
Tuesday,  Dec. 13. -After an exceedingly
pleasant visit in New-Orleans, a visit so pleasant that, with great reluctance, I brought it to
so speedy a close, I took the ears this afternoon
at two o'clock, for Lake Pontchartrain, eight
miles distant from the city. The road passes
over a country as level as a floor, with the
gloomy swamp of pools and bogs on both sides,
rank with funereal cypresses. At four o'clock,
a very beautiful and well-managed steamer,
the Florida, left the pier, which extended far
out into the shallow waters of the lake, to run
along the shores of this quiet inland sea, and
along Mississippi sound, a hundred and sixty
miles, to Mobile. 
DEVELOPMENTS.
It is now ten o'clock at night, as with my
tablet on my knee, I pencil these lines. The
night is warm, almost sultry. There is not a
ripple upon the water, which reflects with marvelous distinctness every star in the sky; and
there is not the slightest movement of that
ground-swell which is ever experienced on the
ocean. The cabin, a remarkably cheerful and
pleasant-looking room, is filled with groups of
gentlemen and ladies; some reading, some conversing. They are all entire strangers to me.
I have left my companion of voyage in NewOrleans, and am returning entirely alone to
the North.
The scene from the deck is solitary and
somber.  We  are just now passing through a
narrow strait which connects Lake Pontchartrain with Lake Borgne.  The outline of the
shore, almost on a level with the water, is
dimly discernible, with  scattered li,ghts, perhaps from the solitary dwellings of the planters,
gleaming here and there in the distance; and
the horizon in many places is illumined with
dull, lurid fires burning in the swamp.
89 
SOUTH AND NORTII.
A gang of plantation slaves, men, women
and children, probably a recent purchase, were
brought  on  board  the boat just before  we
started, to be taken to some plantation in Alabama. They were coarsely but comfortably
clad, and are now asleep by themselves upon a
pile of freight, occupying  the place usually
taken by poor emigrants in Northern ships.
In all respects, as to comfort, intelligence, and
respectability, they appear about on a level with
the poorest class of Irish emigrants.
Several Southern gentlemen, at my side, have
been conversing upon John Brown and Harper's Ferry.  They have, however, spoken with
great sobriety, and without any violence. Still
they seem to be sincerely and totally unconscious that there can be any more wrong in
enslaving a "nigger," than in harnessing a
horse.  I observe that every body here, gentlemen, ladies, Christians, speak of the "niggers."
To one whose education has been of the Northern type, the Southlern state of mind upon this
point is absolutely inconceivable. It does not
90 
DEVELOPMENTS.
seem to me that they ever really think of them
as men and women. And yet they often love
them-as much as I love my noble Newfoundland dog, Lion; and that is saying a great dceal.
A man's attachment for a faithful dog is very,
very strong. I do not mean by this that they
regard the slaves as dogs; but that the kindness they feel for the "niggers" is a peculiar
kindness.
Wednesday night, Dec. 14.-As I awoke this
morning at six o'clock, our steamer was just
entering the Bay of Mobile. In consequence
of the shoal water, only vessels of light draft
can ascend to the head of the Bay where Mobile
is located; and there were at least a hundred
large ships, many of them of the first class, loading and unloading by lighters, nearly thirty
miles below the city. It was perfectly calnm;
the sun was rising in a cloudless sky, and the
scene presented was one of unusual activity
and beauty. There were many steamers traversing the Bay, and the songs of the sailors,
loading and unloading the ships, added to the
91 
SOUTHI AND NORTII.
life of the spectacle.  During the morning I
listened with interest to the conversation of the
various groups scattered over our steamer,
taking a part, when proper, in the conversation.
One of these was sufficiently suggestive to be
worthy of record.
During the night, at one of the little, obscure
landing-places on the lake, a young planter,
about twenty-five years of age, came on board,
apparently from a plantation not far back from
the shore.  Hie soon-rendered himself revoltingly conspicuous by his profaneness and rowdyism. Boon companions speedily gathered
around hiirn, and, for some hours, night was
rendered hideous  by their revelry.  In the
morning I found him on deck, still in the flush
of his debauch.  In loud tones, and with a
swaggering air, he said:
"When'! am dry, I drink whisky; when I
am hungry, I drink whisky; when I am hot,
I drink whiisky; when I am cold, I drink
whisky.  I just keep pouring it down all the
while.  I had rather drink whisky than eat
or sleep!
92 
DEVELOPMENTS.
"I am going to Mobile for a bust. I never
expect to get nearer to heaven than I am when
I get to Mobile. If I don't bust it there this
afternoon and to-night!
"The damned niggers, if they don't work
well while I am gone, they'll get it. I tell you
what I do, when I've been gone on a spree.
WVhen I go home, if I find the damned niggers
have not done a good week's work, I just'take
'em and lick'em like hell-yes, I lick'em like
hell! God Almighty never yet made a nigger
that could come it over me!"
These utterances were interlarded with the
most horrible oaths imaginable. From various
remarks I inferred, that this young man had recently come into the possession of his estate, some
where in the vicinity, by the death of his father,
and that his mother was still living. Hie has
perhaps a hundred slaves, of all varieties of
color, men and women, boys and girls, under
his sway, in a remote plantation which no eye
of civilization ever sees, and where the cry of
his victims can reach no Christian ear. After
93 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
spending a week  in Mobile,  losing  all his
money in gambling, his nerves irritated by
debauchery, and his spirit maddened by disappointment, he returns to his helpless slaves
to wreak his wrath upon them, and to goad
them to severer toil to replenish his purse.
Their doom is one which it is awful to contemplate.
Now this case is doubtless an exception.
There were perhaps twenty other planters on
board, and I did not see another one, who did
not seem to me to be a mild and humane man.
Still there must be not a few of such exceptions. Good men at the South abhor this, as
do good men at the North. But these outrages
can only be abolished by abolishing the system
which legalizes them. And when we urge our
Southern brethren to abandon this system,
fraught with such woes, men at the North, men
of culture and opulence, will lift up their voices
and say: "This system of slavery need not be
abolished.   It is alike  advantageous  to the
slave and his master. It is just, wise, and
beneficent."
94 
DEVELOPMENTS.
Brethren of the South, we do by no means
feel that you are sinners beyond all others.
You can not have worse men with you, than
we have with us. There are many at the
North, eager at any moment to engage ill the
slave-trade; many who, if they could get plantations, would treat their slaves more severely
than any of you do. And, for this reason,
we feel that we have much to do at the North
in casting light upon this subject.
We read of the beauties of the Patriarchal
Institution, but I think all must admit that this
young planter, to whom I have referred, is
rather a curious specimen of one of the descendants of the Patriarch.  I apprehend, that
the Father of the Faithful would feel some reluctance in surrendering his Household to so
degenerate a child.
I am a democrat, in every fibre of my soul a
democrat, using that much-abused word in its
true, classical, sacred sense. My democracy is
the democracy which our Saviour Jesus Christ
has taught us. He has given me the motto
95 
SOUTH AND NORTHI.
whichl  I inscribe upon  my  banner: "As ye
would that others should do unto you, do ye
unto them also."
This is a democracy which embraces all in its
regards, the whole human family, saint and
sinner, rich and poor, bond  and free; which
would guide and bless Agrippa and Pilate, aind
the opulent Joseph of Arimathea, and also the
poor Magdalen, and the widow who had but
two mites.  But it is a democracy which has a
peculiar sympathy for the poor, the friendless,
the oppressed; which would restore to every
one, however  defrauded, his rights; which
would stop at the gate to dress the wounds of
Lazarus, instead of rushing eagerly in at the
palace-door to feast with Dives; which would
feed the hungry and clothe the naked, rather
than bow in adulation before him who is clothed
in purple and fine linen and fares sumptuously
every day. It is a democracy devoted rather
to the service of the toiling millions than to
courting the smiles of the millionaire; which
would rather carry comfort to the cabin of the
96 
DEVELOPMENTS.
slave than share in the luxuries of the saloon
of his master. This is true, heaven-born democracy. There is none other. Every thing else
assuming the name is pretense and a sham.
I saw in a paper, which I read in New-Orleans, that a Southern member of Congress
stated on the floor of the House, that Thomas
Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence,
had no idea of including the colored race in the
statement, that,
"All men are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
This Southern gentleman declares, that, in this
statement, Jefferson intended to include only the
white or Caucasian race, and had not the slightest intention of bringing the colored races within the sweep of this principle. And, very
defiantly, he challenges any man to rise and say,
that Jefferson intended to include the colored
races in his Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Now, most peremptorily, do I join issue with
you, my friend, upon this point. I aver, that
97 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
Jefferson understood, wonderfully well, the use
of language; and when he wrote, "all men," he
meant all men, the human family.  He thought
not of Blumenbach's division of this family into
Caucassians, Indians, Ethiopians, Mongolians,
and Malays; or ofthe fifty other classesinto which
other physiologists have endeavored to classify
our race. He did inot intend to exclude John
Randolph from this principle, because the blood
of the Indian circulated in his veins, or Rammohun Roy, because of his Mongolian descent,
or Alexander Dumas, because his high genius
is inspired by the commingling of Ethiopian
and Caucasian blood. It was the human family
which was in his mind's eye when he gave to
the world this noble utterance;  and it is an insult to his memory to suggest, that, when drawing up that magnificent bill of rights, the gospel
of democracy, which no infidel cavils can evei
undermine, his mind was groping about among
the trivialities of artificial classifications of our
race into white men, and red men, and black
men, and yellow men, and tawny men.  Jeffer
98 
DEVELOPMENTS.
son said, "all," all men. Hie meant what he
said.
The gentleman making this strange affirmation in Congress, necessarily proposes that the
Declaration of Independence should be amended to read thus.
"All men of Caucasian blood, that is, men
of white complexion, straight hair, small heelbones and blunt shins, are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights; among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."'
Does any man, in his senses, believe that
Thomas  Jefferson would accept this amend
ment?
I contend that this point is so clear, that
there is no room for serious debate. All that
Jefferson has written is in accordance with this
view.  With no prospective fear of the Dred
Scott decision, a decision which, in my judgment, will constitute one of the blackest pages
in the records of the nineteenth century, he calls
99 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
the colored people  his fellow-citizens,  recognizing no difference between them and others.
' The whole commerce between master and
slave," he indignantly writes, "is a perpetual
exercise of the most boisterous passions-the
most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submissions on the other.....
"And  with  what  execration  should  the
statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half
of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the
other, transforms those into despots, and these
into enemies; destroys the morals of one part,
and the amor _patrice (love of country) of the
other; for, if a slave can have a country in this
world, it must be any other in preference to
that in which he is born to live and labor for
another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute, as far as depends
on his individual exertions, to the evanishment
of the human race, or entail his own miserable
condition on the endless generations proceeding
from him."*
*  totes on  Virginia, p. 40.
C:*.e...   ~.
!'  ^:':..:
100 
DEVELOPMENTS.
Thus pathetically and indignantly does he
deplore the doom of one half of his fellow-citizens, the slaves, trampled upon by the other
half, their masters.
But the sympathy of Jefferson, our great
Democratic leader, does not stop here. He
calls these oppressed children of bondage not
only his fellow-citizens, but his brethren.
'We  must wait," says he devoutly, "with
patience, the workings of an overruling Providence, and hope that that is preparing the
deliverance of these, our brethren! When the
measure of their tears shall be full, when their
groans shall have involved heaven itself in
darkness, doubtless a God of justice will
awaken to their distress.   Nothing is more
certainly written in the Book of Fate, than
that this people shall be free."
And these were not hasty views, or views
which he subsequently abandoned. But six
weeks before his death, in a letter addressed to
James Heaton, he writes:
"My sentiments have been forty years before
101 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
the public. Had I repeated them forty times,
they would only become the more stale and
thread-bare. Although I shall not live to see
them consummated, they will not die with me."
It is in vain to aver that Jefferson wished for
freedom, only for the Caucasian race. It is in
vain to deny that Jefferson is the chief leader
of those whom you, brethren of the South, now
call incendiaries and fanatics. It is in vain to
deny that his Declaration of Independence, his
Letters, his Notes on Virginia, are papers
which you now pronounce to be incendiary
documents, and which you forbid white nolnslaveholders at the South to read, or the mails
to carry.  And lastly, and most sadly, it is in
vain to deny that were Jefferson now to utter
these sentiments in Eastern Virginia, the Carolinas, or Georgia, he would expose himself to
all the insult and outrage of lynch-law.
A poor Irish stone cutter, James Power, at
work on the State House in Columbia, SouthCarolina, recently ventured to remark, that he
thought Slavery objectionable, inasmuch as it
102 
DEVELOPMENTS.
caused the white laborer at the South to be regarded as an inferior and degraded man.
The alarming statement was reported to the
vigilance committee, consisting of twelve persons. The poor Irishman was arrested, led
through the main street of the city by an
immense crowd, hooting and yelling.   Two
negroes were compelled to drag him through
the puddles and muddy places, to the State
Hlouse yard. A mob of three thousand was assembled around him. He was stripped to the
skin; and a stout negro was ordered, with a
cow-hide, to lay thirty-nine lashes on his bare
back,  which  should  draw  blood  at every
stroke. After enduring the dreadful anguish
of this infliction, he was daubed with tar,
hair, eye-brows, body and all, and then was
covered with feathers and cotton. His pants
were then drawn up over his limbs to the
waist, and he was thrust into the negro-car,
and sent out of the State.*
As we read such narratives of which the
* The Charleston Mercury boasts of this achievement
103 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
Southern papers boast, we are led to inquire,
have we indeed become a nation of barbarians?
Is our religion, and is our civilization clean
gone forever?  We search the papers of every
nation in Europe in vain, for any thing
approaching such savage and shocking inhumanity. European gentleman read such recitals, and are lost in utter amazement; and they
know  not where to look  for the influences
which have thus converted civilized men into
ferocious and brutal monsters.
What is the crime of which we are guilty,
who deplore with Jefferson, the existence of
Slavery, and plead and pray for its peaceful
abolition?   Brethren of the South! we have
learned our lesson from the wisest, the purest,
the most patriotic of your own number. Was
Jefferson a Fanatic, an Incendiary, and an
Enemy of the South? We can not feel more
deeply than he felt, or speak more earnestly.
The New-York  Independent of Dec. 29, 1859, gives a narrative of the event, taken from the lips of the sufferer,
whose wounds were still unhealed.
104 
DEVELOPMENTS.
Was Patrick Henry a Fanatic, an Incendiary, an Enemy of the South?  And yet he
addresses to you, and bequeaths to us these
burning words:
"Times that seem to have pretensions to
boast of high improvements in the arts and
sciences, and refined morality, have brought
into general use, and guarded by many laws a
species of violence and tyranny, which our
more rude and barbarous, but more honest ancestors detested. Is it not amazing that at a
time when the rights of humanity are defined,
and understood with precision, in a country
above all others fond of liberty, that, in such
an age and such a country, we find men, professing a religion the most mild, humane, gentle and generous, adopting such a principle as
repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent
with the Bible, and destructive to liberty?
Every thinking, honest man, rejects it in speculation."
Was John Randolph of Roanoke, a Fanatic,
and an  Incendiary, and  an Enemy  of  the
105 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
South?  And yet, in the solemn hour, when
death and judgment were opening to his view,
he writes in his last will and testament.
"I give to my slaves their freedom, to which
my conscience tells me they are justly entitled.
It has a long time been a matter of the deepest
regret  to  me,  that the circumstances  under
which  I  inherited  them, and the obstacles
thrown in the way  by the laws of the land,
have prevented my emancipating them in my
life-timne; which it is my full intention to do in
case I can accomplish it."
I seem to see this extraordinary man rise
from the grave, and with his long, bony finger,
point to an orator on the boards of the Music
Hall, at the great Union Saving meeting, in
New-York.  With  his peculiar sneer, he repeats the words pronounced in eulogy of Slavery.  "It is just, wise and beneficent."   And
then vibrating that finger, and curling his lip
with scorn, he repeats his well-known words,
uttered on the floor of Congress:
"Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head
106 
DEVELOPMENTS.
of that man from the North, who rises to defend Slavery on principle."
Was Henry Clay a Fanatic, and an Incendiary, and an Enemy of the South, when he exclaimed in tones which still vibrate upon the
nation's ear:
"So long as God allows the vital current to
flow through my veins, I will never, never,
NEVER, by word or thought, by mind or will,
aid in admitting one rood of free territory to
the everlasting curse of human bondage!"*
Was Governor McDowell of Virginia, a
Fanatic, and an Incendiary, and an Enemy of
the South, when, in the Legislature of Virginia,
ihe gave utterance to the pathetic and forceful
words:
" Who that looks to this unhappy bondage
of an unhappy people, in the midst of our
society, and thinks of its incidents or issues,
but weeps over it as a curse as great upon him
who inflicts it, as upon him who suffers it?
* Speech in the United States Senate in 1850.
107 
SOUTH AND NORTII.
Sir, you may place the slave where you please
you may dry up, to the uttermost, the fountains of his feelings, the springs of his thought,
you may close upon his mind every avenue of
knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial
night-you may yoke him to your labors as
the ox that liveth only to work, and worketh
only to live-you may put him under any
process which, without destroying his value as
a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational
being-you may do this, and the idea that he
was born to be free will survive it all. It is
allied to his hope of immortality; it is the ethereal part of his nature which oppression can not
reird.  It is a torch lit up in his soul by the
hand of Deity, and never meant to be extinguished by the hand of man."
Was the illustrious Virginian, Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier, a Fanatic, an Incendiary,
and an Enemy of the South, when he, in the
same Legislature of Virginia, of 1832, replied to
the question, "Wherefore then object to Slavery?" in the ponderous words:
108 
DEVELOPMENTS.
"Because it is ruinous to the whites-retards
improvements, roots out an industrious population, banishes the yeomanry of the country, deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith, the
shoemaker, the carpenter, of employment and
support."
And, finally, was  George  Washington  a
Fanatic, and an Incendiary, and an enemy to
the South, when he wrote to Robert Morris,
April 12, 1786:
"I can only say that there is not a man living,
who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a
plan adopted for the abolition of it," (Slavery.)
Or when he wrote to Lafayette, April 5,
1788:
"The scheme, my dear Marquis, which you
propose as a precedent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people in this country,
from the state of bondage in which they are
held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence
of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in
so laudable a work."
In his last will and testament he inscribed
these noble words:
109 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
"Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will
and desire that all the slaves which I hold in
my own right, shall receive their freedom. To
emancipate them during her life would, though
earnestly wished by me, be attended with such
insuperable difficulties, on account of their mixture by marriage with the dower negroes, as to
excite the most painful sensation, if not disagreeable consequences, from the latter, while
both descriptions are in the occupancy of the
same proprietor, it not being in my power,
under the tenure by which the dower negroes
are held, to manumit them."
Mrs. Washington, immediately after her husbands death, learning from his will that the
only obstacle to the immediate emancipation of
the slaves was her right of dower, immediately
relinquished that right, and the slaves were at
once emancipated.
Brethren of the South, we are not Fanatics,
and Incendiaries, and your Enemies, because
we have imbibed the spirit of these noble
Southerners. It is from their lips that we have
110 
DEVELOPMENTS.
learned our lessons of liberty.  Their teachings
have instructed us to abhor Slavery.  I close
this chapter with the solemn words of the Father of our Country.
"I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess
another slave by purchase; it being among my
first wishes to see some plan adopted by which
Slavery, in this country may be abolished by
law."?
"Abolished!"  WVashington was an abolitionist! and there are thousands, and tens of thousands at the North, who have been instructed
in his school.  The lessons he has taught them
they will never forget.
lit 
CHAPTER VI.
THE RIVER, THE PEOPLE, THE HOMES.
Thursday, Dec. 15.-At eleven o'clock yesterday I reached Mobile. Hospitable friends
there took me to their house to dine, and in
the afternoon I rode through the city and its
suburbs. The day was unusually fine, and to
me the city looked exceedingly attractive.
Here, as in New-Orleans, I was surprised to see
how effectually free labor seems to have driven
slave labor from the wharves and the streets.
The city, with its intelligence and its enterprise,
is a dangerous place for the slave. He acquires
knowledge of human rights, by working with
others who receive wages when he receives
none;who can come and go at their pleasure,
when he, from the cradle to the grave, must
obey a master's imperious will. It is found ex 
THE RIVER-PEOPLE-HOMES.
pedient, almost necessary, to remove the slave
from these influences, and send him back to the
intellectual stagnation and gloom of the plantation.
The Irish and the Germans seem to do nearly all the work of the streets. White girls are
being also more and more employed in domestic service; and I think that but a few years
will pass away ere nearly all of the colored
population will be removed from the cities of
the  South.  Indeed, now,  New-Orleans and
Mobile seem but little more like slave cities
than do Philadelphia and New-York.
Mobile and its environs are almost perfectly
flat, but it has the peculiar beauty of the prairie.
There were a great many homes which looked
attractive, and as though any one might love
to live there; and from the appearance of these
homes, with front yards and shrubbery and
flowers, I am sure that the society here, must be
pleasant. The country, in the extreme South,
is far more attractive to me than I had expected
to find it. The yellow-fever epidemic is a very
113 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
serious drawback to the idea of a residence in
Mobile. Were it not for this, it seems to me
that beneath its sunny skies, any man might
love to find his home
The society I meet here is frank and agreeable. Indeed it seems to me that there must
be two classes of Southerners, as different from
each other as light is from darkness. I often
wonder if our brethren at the South are bewildered by the same apparent diversity of
character in our Northern men. The Southerners whom I meet at the South in social intercourse, to whom I am introduced at hotels, in
steamboats, and at the fire-side, are genial,
friendly, courteous-gentlemen in tone, kind
and polished in manners, ever recognizing the
courtesies of refined society. But there is another class whom I never meet, whom I seek
for in vain, but who are revealed to me in
newspaper editorials, in convention speeches,
and in Congressional debates. The difference
between these two classes is so vast as to excite
astonishment.   From  what I read I should
114 
THE RIVER-PEOPLE-HONMES.
infer that there was a very numerous class at
the South, composing the great majority of its
population, whose mothers had fed them in infancy, if I may quote an expression of Festus,
on "buttered thunder."
I am led to these remarks by a few paragraphs I have observed in one of the newspapers. It is reported that one of the Governors
of one of the Southern States has said in Convention:
"As for me, I mean to stay here, with one
exception. If invasion shall ever again cross
the Northern border of Virginia, and I can get
one hundred men, ay, or ten men, to follow
me, whether the Legislature authorizes it or not,
I will go North; and, if the Southern people
are the men of will I take them to be, rather
than let this Union be dissolved they will drive
into Canada every Black Republican, every
abolitionist, every disunionist."
Now, happy as we shall be to receive such
allies in defense of the Union we love, and
which we desire so earnestly to have preserved,
115 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
there is something really appalling in such a
menace. Ferocity like this seems to our cold
Northern blood absolutely awfuil.  It is said
that when the African lion roars, his terrific
voice swells over hill and valley, filling a circle
six miles in diameter, and that every living
thing within the circle, whether man or beast,
trembles at the sound.
But there is something more fearful, even
than this, in the very idea of this invasion of
the North by ten men-taking Philadelphia by
storm; then by sudden resistless assault demolishing Cincinnati, New-York, Boston, and
Buffalo; and then driving some ten or fifteen
millions of people from their cities, their villages, their peaceful homes, hundreds of miles
to the wastes of Canada, and then precipatating
them pell-mell into the St. Lawrence.  It is
awful! It is heart-rending! There is that in
the very thought of this which makes one's
lips turn pale, causes the hair of the head to
stand on end, and freezes the blood in one's
veins with horror. What awful ferocity these
116 
THE IRIVER-PEOPLE-HOMES.
ten men must possess! What demoniac fierceness and energy and power!  Milton's description of the fierce fight of the fallen angels, pales
into insignificance before their achievements.
It is difficult to account for the fact that one
never meets any of these fierce creatures in his
travels. I have not met with a single one. I
have seen, of course, some uncultivated men,
some poor and debased, some profane men,
but I have met with not a single specimen of
this kind of character; and I can truly say that
almost every Southerner whom I have thus far
seen, has seemed to me a courteous, unassuming, kind-hearted gentlemen. I expected to
have caught a glimpse of some of these creatures, tearing over the hills like a locomotive
under an attack of delirium-tremens. But thus
far I have been disappointed. I have met with
many, who were truly genial companions, and
whom any gentleman would love as intimate
associates and neighbors and friends. Do those
fiierce men, who  utter such terrible menaces,
like lions, sleep in their lair by day, and never
come out but in the night?
117 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
It is now late at night. I am writing in the
cabin of the steamer. The boat is crowded,
apparently with Southern planters; but I have
not yet heard a word or witnessed an action inconsistent with the usages of reputable society.
WVe are still breasting the current of the Alabama river, having ascended nearly two hundred miles since yesterday afternoon.   The
scenery soon becomes a little monotonous,
though the general aspect of the country is rich
and very beautiful. The climate must be delightful, and, were the institutions of man what
they should be, the whole region might be as a
garden of loveliness. But since we left Mobile
I have seen only two houses which would be
deemed inhabitable by a respectable white
family at the North.  We  may  have passed
hundreds in the night, but I have not seen
them.
I am informed that the fever-and-ague prevails upon the banks of the river, so that the
beautiful sites on the bluffs are neglected, and
the planters build back, in what are called the
118 
THE RIVER-PEOPLE —HOMES.
"piney woods," where they find pure air and
good water. The plantations, however, extend
along the rich bottom-lands of the river, where
the soil is inexhaustibly fertile; and the negroes'
cabins are erected near the shore, where they
can have access to abundance of water, such as
it is, and can be near their work.  Their huts,
to me, look wretched in the extreme, with not
a pane of glass, not a particle of green turf, not
a flower or a shrub, not an out-building of any
kind, not the slightest indication of any thing
which we, at the North, call comfort. What
do people mean by saying that the negroes at
the South are better provided for than the
laboring population at the North?
Miserable, indeed, must the life be, the
mere animal life, spent in these dirty, cheerless
cabins. There are no resources of any kind for
mental culture, no books, no furniture; no
pure mother's loving guidance, no intelligent
father's instructions. They are merely cabins
where "niggers" can be fed and sheltered, so
as to be kept in good working order.
119 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
We passed this afternoon one large and
beautiful mansion, which would be deemed
beautiful any where. It occupied a very commanding position, and with its cupola, verandah, white fence, green blinds, and shrubbery,
reminded one of those pleasant homes which
are seen in countless thousands in the Northern
States. It was such a house as with us would
cost perhaps ten thousand dollars. The owner
was evidently a man of thrift.  His plantation
was large, piles of cotton-bales were collected
on the shore, waiting for a steamer to take
them to Mobile. Groups of negroes, of all
ages, and both sexes, coarse, soulless-looking
creatures, were scattered around, watching the
passage of the boat. This is the only house I
have seen since leaving Mobile, for a distance
of more than two hundred miles, in which I
think I could be willing to live.
And yet, this must be rather a gloomy
home. There is no church here, no village
school, no siaging-me:fing, no  social winterevening gatherings.  The soil is so soft and
6
120 
THE RIVER-PEOPLE —HOMES.
rich, that for much of the year the roads are
quite impassable. The proprietor may find
enough to occupy him in the care of his vast
estate. But to the sons and daughters, the
home must be almost like a cloister. But the
whole region is beautiful, very, very beautiful.
It is still eminently a new country, with probably not one tenth of the land as yet under
cultivation. When thriving towns shall fringe
these shores, now mainly covered with forest,
and pleasant villages; and farm-houses, with
churches and schools, and all the appliances of
high enlightenment shall embellish  the  interior, this country will be like a garden, unsurpassed, perhaps, by any other on the globe.
But it is clear that this can only be accomplished by the energy of free institutions. Where
the masses of the people are degraded, ignorant, and, consequently, thriftless, the general
aspect of the country must be miserable.
The scenes which we witness at night are
often exceedingly wild, and weird-like in the
extreme. The boat frequently arrives at some
121 
SOUTH AND NORT.
obscure landing. The whistle is blown just before our arrival, which brings a group of halfdressed negroes tumbling down the bank to see
what is going on. In a sort of iron frame-work
basket, with a long handle, chips of pitch-pine
knots are placed, which are set in a blaze, and
which instantly produce almost the most
brilliant torch imaginable.   The forests,  the
dark flowing river, the barbaric-looking negroes, the boatmen, the shouts, and the lurid
flames of the torches, all produce a spectacle,
which I never weary in beholding.
Friday, Dec. 16.-A  dark wet day, and the
rain falling in floods. We have spent the
whole day ascending the river, which is so tortuous in its course, that, though it is but two
hundred miles by land from Mobile to Montgomery, it is four hundred miles by water.
And yet the land route is so exceedingly uncomfortable, leading through miry roads, or
over  corduroy bridges, that nearly all the
travel is in the boats. The scenery of the
river soon, from its sameness, ceases to interest,
122 
THE RIVER-PEOPLE —HOlMES.
since there are no cheerful villages, or church
spires, or pleasant-looking homes to gratify the
eye. We see nothing but the sweep of the
forest, with frequent expanses of cotton fields,
now looking dry and dead, and occasional
groups of forlorn-looking negro-cabins.   To
think of a lifetime spent in such a hut, cut off
from all mental culture, from all joys, but eating corn bread, and sleeping on straw, is awful.
It is a mystery unfathomable, how a Christian, who believes that God made man but little
lower than the angels, and that Christ came to
redeem and to elevate him even above the
condition from which he has fallen, can regard
with any feelings but those of utter abhorrence,
a system which thus shuts up millions to ignorance and barbarism. 
There are no Bibles in these cabins, no Sabbath-schools, and it must be very rare, indeed,
that there can be any preached gospel. The
intelligence of these plantation slaves, thus studiously excluded from every gleam of moral
and intellectual light, must be almost incon
123 
SOUTII AND NORTH.
ceivably low. The slaves in the cities, working in the midst of the conversation of white
men, listen eagerly, and gain some information.
This has alarmed their masters, and they are
sending them off, as fast as possible, to the
plantations where, as in a tomb, no sight or
sound of knowledge can reach them. A few
years ago, the levee at New-Orleans was covered with slaves, loading and unloading the ships.
But the poor creatures were gaining information, and their masters took the alarm. Now,
hardly a colored face is to be seen on the levee,
and the work there is done by the Germans
and the Irish.
"The cities," said a gentleman to me, "is no
place for the niggers.   They get strange notions into their heads, and grow discontented.
They ought, every one of them, to be sent back
on to the plantations."
This process is now going on with exceeding
rapidity. Even now, a person may {ake the
tour of the United States, and hardly see any
thing of Slavery. Hie will see well-dressed ser
124 
THE RIVER-PEOPLE-HOMES.
vants in the hotels, and petted maid-servants
waiting upon kind mistresses.  The miseries of
the plantation are remote from his eye. There
is great alarm felt in the South in view of the
enterprise and energy the negro is developing,
and from the light which is penetrating his
mind from the abundance which floods our
country.  His energies must be crushed.  The
eyes of his mind must be so far blinded, as
only to give him sufficient light to enable him
to work. No one will deny that such is the
fact, though, perhaps, some may deem it unkind to say it.
125 
CH?APTER VII.
ENERGY OF THE BLACKS AND SLAVERY OF
THE WHITES.
Saturday night, Dec. 17.-At five o'clock last
evening, in a pouring rain, we arrived at Montgomery. The city is said to be very beautiful,
but I had no opportunity to view its attractions. It is a small place of but a few thousand
inhabitants, very pleasantly located. Notwithstanding the rain, I contrived to visit the Artesian well, which pours forth an unintermitted
stream of very clear, luke-warm water, from a
depth of several hundred feet.  It is supposed
by geologists that the interior of the earth,
after piercing the crust for forty miles, is a lake
of liquid fire. The molten mass is often ejectcd from volcanoes, the chimneys of this mighty 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
furnace;  and the lower we  sink our wells,
after we get beyond the influence of the sun,
the nearer we approach these fires, and the
hotter we find the water which rises.  In many
places springs gush up from such depths that
the water is ever boiling with the excessive
heat.
After taking a very comfortable supper at
the St. Charles Hotel, we took the cars, at nine
o'clock, for Augusta, Georgia.  The night was
exceedingly  dark,  and  the  rain  descended
in  floods,  which   seemed  really  appalling.
There  were many fears  that some  of  the
culverts might have been washed away, and
that we should before morning encounter some
serious disaster.  But all night long, through
the rain and the darkness, we went  careering
on in perfect safety; and with the dawn of the
morning found ourselves approaching the frontiers of Georgia.
The country itself, so far as hills and vales,
forests and streams, climate and soil, are concerned, is very beautiful. But man has done
127 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
but little to add to its attractions. Almost
wherever you encounter the work of his hands,
in the rural districts, you see a deformity.
With a region so ricly endowed  by nature,
with a country so wonderfully adapted to be
the home of opulence, intelligence, refinement,
and joy, one feels disappointed and pained to
meet only forlorn-looking villages, miserable
negro huts, and a white population sunk almost
below the negro, and seemingly content with a
degree of indolence and discomfort which
hardly entitles them to the name of civilized
beings.  Occasionally we passed a dilapidated
building, which the genius of ugliness must
have exhausted its energies in erecting, and
which we were told was a church. It is to be
hoped that the worshippers are not to be judged
by the aspect of their shrines. The Southern
country churches! Did civilization ever before witness such edifices! It is said that a
Southern infidel once impiously remarked, that
he thought that they were "good enough for
128 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
the worship of One who was born in a manger."
At Atlanta I procured a morning paper,
the Southern Confederacy, of Dec. 17.  It contains a petition to the Legislature of Georgia,
which confirms some of the views I have presented. I quote the following passages:
" WVe beg leave to represent to your honorable bodies, that the allowing slaves to hiro
their own time, to live apart from their masters,
to own cabs, drays, baggage-waggons, and use
them for their own use-to take contracts for
work as mechanics, is a great evil. We, your
petitioners, earnestly request that a law shall be
passed, prohibiting any negroes from living off
the premises where their masters reside; prohibiting any negro from taking a contract to
erect a building, or do any other mechanical
labor; and providing that they shall not work
as mechanics or otherwise, except under the
immediate direction of their owners, or white
men, to whom they may be hired; prohibiting,
also, that no negro shall own or drive a cab,
6*
129 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
dray, wagon, or other public vehicle, or run
such public vehicle for himself, and to his profit
wholly or in part."
What a comment is this upon the declaration, that the negro is so lazy, that he will not
work  unless driven by the lash!  Here the
whole legislative power of the State of Georgia
is invoked to paralyze the energies of the negro
seeking employment, through the most chilling
repulses and discouragements. No language
can be too severe to denounce a system which
demands such atrocious legislation.  We hazard
nothing in saying that the pages of history may
be searched in vain to find a code more utterly
infamous than the slave code of the Southern
States.   And  this in Republican,  Christian
America, and in the nineteenth century!
It is indeed depressing to contemplate this
Southern country in its thriftlessness, desolation, and debasement-and think what it might
be were man but true to himself. I can conceive of no agriculture more pleasant, more attractive in every respect, than the culture of
130 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
cotton.  Let this whole region be cut up into
farms of between one and two hundred acres;
let free labor rear her tasteful dwellings, such
as she has reared by hundreds of thousands
in Ohio, in Connecticut, in Maine, let each
farmer, in addition to raising the supplies his
family may need, also raise, say twenty bales of
cotton, which would afford even his young
children employment and pleasure, and which
would bring him in at fifty dollars a bale, one
thousand dollars in cash, and what a vision
of beauty immediately blooms over these now
scathed fields! Farm-houses, orchards, gardens,
villages, school-houses, academies, church spires,
printing-presses, book-stores, would rise as by
magic, and the desert would blossom as the
rose.  These regions, under such  institutions,
might be converted into the glory of our country and the world.
There is so much work to be done that we
need the labor of every colored man now in the
South. None could be spared. The proprietors will need them as hired laborers in their
131 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
fields. The matrons will need the females as
cooks, and washer-women, and dairy-maids;
and can afford to pay them wages which will
incite their industry, and rouse their ambition.
A fallen race can not be raised in a day. These
negroes must long be employed in the humble
avocations of life. But industry and labor are
ever elevating and ennobling. It is Slavery
only which debases and crushes the soul. Let
us but take this colored population by the hand,
awaken within them self-respect, employ them
in all service, domestic, agricultural, and mechanical, for which they can show adaptation;
encourage them to establish schools for the education of their children, instruct them to rear
cheerful cottages, and to embellish them with
shrubbery and flowers; lead them to the Sabbath-school and the church, and we shall need
no oppressive laws to drive them out of the
country as nuisances. The colored man needs,
in his depressed condition, the white man-he
needs his fostering care, the guidance of his
superior intelligence, the protection of his laws.
132 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
The white man needs the aid of his colored
brother, as his assistant, or his servant in the
house, the field, or the shop. Change the relation from slave labor to free, hired labor, and
every colored man at the South becomes of increased value to the country. Under these circumstances such a flood of white population
would pour in beneath the sunny skies of the
South, as soon to destroy the present disproportion between the whites and the blacks, and, ere
long, there would be the entire evanishing of
the cloud which now menaces our land.
Satan is a hard master. He lures us to oppression, and then curses us in our crime. God
shows us the path of rectitude, and it is the
path of prosperity and joy.
Let none say that the negroes will not work
for wages.  The petition to the Georgia Legislature silences  that falsehood forever.  The
slaves are so eager to work for wages that even
when they have to hire their time, paying two
thirds of their wages to their masters, they will
still press on so earnestly, learning mechanic
133 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
trades, taking contracts, purchasing horses and
drays, that the proud, rich, intelligent white
race feels called upon to interpose legislative
enactments to crush their energies! I It is not
necessary to utter another word upon this point.
The horrble petition to the Georgia Legislature
must silence the most inveterate caviler.
Let no one say that white men can not labor
beneath a Southern sun.  Look at those Germans and Irish working with such energy upon
the heated  levee at New-Orleans.   Look  at
those crowds of white men  straining  every
nerve upon the quay at Mobile, and loading and
unloading ships beneath the full blaze of the
sun, on the glassy waters of the bay.  Will
they admit that negroes can beat them in their
work?  Go with me to Texas!  Look at those
vast cotton-fields, cultivated entirely by white
labor, and will you still say that the white man
can not work at the South?
Now just let me crush the head of this slander, till the tail of it even shall never squirm
again.   It has lived long enough, and done
134 
BLACKS AND WVHITES.
mischief enough. It is time that it should die.
For years we have been grossly slandering the
beautiful South, the Italy of our country-alas!
the Italy in more senses than one-by the assertion, that the climate is so unsalubrious that a
white man can not labor there.
1. There are already at the South more than
one million of free white laborers, engaged in
agriculture, working in the fields, exclusive of
those engaged in the mechanic arts, and they
experience no more difficulty than do workmen
at the North. Indeed cases of coup de soleil, or
beingo sun-struck, are far more numerous at the
North than at the South. In fact the intensity
of heat in Maine is greater, the mercury rises
higher, than in South -Carolina.   The more
moderate heat of the South is more prolonged;
that is all. Labor in the open sun is never so
perilous there as in our hottest August days.
2. By the census it appears that in Alabama
there are now sixty-seven thousand white men,
who work habitually tilling the soil; that in
Mississippi there are fifty-five thousand; and in
135 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
Texas, forty-seven thousand, thus industriously
at work in the fields. Is not this trying the experiment satisfactorily?   Is not the question
settled?
3. The climate of the South is the climate of
Southern Europe, where no white man ever
thinks of complaining that the heat is too great
for labor. In fact there can hardly be a more
genial climate for the introduction of all sorts
of labor than that which our Southern States
present.
4. Listen to the voice of testimony: "In the
extreme South," says Cassius M.  Clay,  "at
New-Orleans, the laboring men, the stevedores
and hackmen on the levee, where the heat is
intensified by the proximity of the red brick
buildings, are all white men, and they are in
the full enjoyment of health.
"But how about cotton?   I am informed by
a friend of mine, himself a slaveholder, that in
north-western Texas. among the German settlements, who, true to their national instincts, will
not employ the labor of a slave, they produce
136 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
more cotton to the acre, and of a better quality,
than that produced by slave labor." Is not
Texas far enough South to test this question?
"The steady heat of our summers," says Governor Hammond, of South-Carolina, "is not so
prostrating as the short, but frequent and sudden, bursts of Northern summers."
"I Here, in New-Orleans," says Dr. Cartwright,
"the larger part of the drudgery, work requirinlg exposure to the sun, as railroad-making,
street-paving, dray-driving, ditching, and building, is performed by white people."
One of the ex-Governors of Alabama told
me that any labor whatever the negro could
perform in Alabama, the white man could perform still more efficiently. We might multiply
this evidence indefinitely. But it is abundant.
WVe are greatly deceived at the North in reference to the extreme heat of the Southern cli
mate, as our Southern friends are in reference
to the unbearable cold at the North. SouthCarolina is not burning beneath an equatorial
sun, nor Maine freezing in Arctic ices. The
137 
SOUTII AND NORTH.
mercury in Maine not unfrequently rises to 96~,
in the shade; while ice at Galveston, Texas, has
formed three inches in thickness, snow five feet
in depth has spread over the fields of NorthCarolina, ice ten inches thick has covered her
streams; and many men have been frozen to
death on the prairies of Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Texas. The whole expanse of our Southern States is within the circuit of the temperate
zone, presenting as attractive a field for human
industry as mortals can desire.
Sabbath, Dec. 18.  Augusta, Georgia.-Weary
of travel, I have stopped to pass the Sabbath
in this city, and it is indeed, notwithstanding a
little of an uncared-for aspect, one of the most
beautiful cities in our land. In the morning I
attended the first Presbyterian Church. It is a
pleasant house, was well filled with a very intelligent-looking audience, and a young  man
preached a sermon, thoroughly evangelical in
its character.  No where have I seen indications of a better observed Sabbath. I was
much struck with the peculiarly neat dress, and
138 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
happy aspect of the negro children in the
streets. Most of the blacks I met seemed highly intelligent, and very respectable. It does
seem a shame that laws should be called for
to crush their energies as they strive to rise to
manhood. Poor creatures! The atmosphere
of the city is too life-giving, and creates
thought. It is the doom of them all to be sent
back to the gloom of the plantation-cabin.
Here the very signs over the shop-doors teach
them to read, and they must be sent where no
rays of light can penetrate their minds. May
God pity them.  "There is no flesh in man's
obdurate heart."
I am more and more impressed with the
grandeur of our country. It is a world by
itself. I have now been traveling day and
night, since last Tuesday, on one of the great
routes between New-Orleans  and New-York,
and have not yet got half-way home. The distance we have already passed is over nine hundred miles. I leave here in the cars at eight
o'clock to-morrow morning, and must travel
139 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
day  and  night  until Wednesday,  to  reach
Washington. Our country is also as highly
favored in fertility of soil, salubrity of climate,
variety of products, and beauty of scenery, as it
is in grandeur.  We need but intelligence and
piety to make us the greatest and happiest people on the globe.
It is a great mistake on the part of our
Southern brethren, to imagine that the North
feels that its interests would be promoted by
the decay of the South. Portland is not clad
in sackcloth, because the bells of prosperity are
ringing in Boston.  Massachusetts is not abandoned to briers and desolation, because Ohio is
blooming like a rose. Hawks and owls do not
build their nests upon grass-grown wharves
in New-York, because the floods of prosper.
ous life roll along the levee of New-Orleans.
ihe thrift, wealth, and power of our whole
country is promoted by the prosperity of each
portion of it. Just so far as each individual
man rises in the scale of intelligence, and in the
gratification of expanded and healthful desires,
140 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
just in that proportion does he add to the prosperity  of the whole  country.   The  South
would not be enriched, but fearfully impoverished, were the North suddenly to degenerate
into semi-barbarism, and were her cities and
her plains reduced to solitude, or roamed over
by such a mere animal population as floods
Central Asia.
And were the South suddenly to emerge
into tenfold wealth; were ships to crowd all
her ports, and beautiful villages smile in all her
sunny meadows, and fringe all her luxuriant
streams with churches, and schools, and free
presses, and libraries, and the music of the
rilnging hammer, and the hum of ten thousand
looms, it would not be sectional, but national
prosperity and power.  The shout of gratulation would be echoed back from the mountains
of Maine, to the plantations of Louisiana. A
kind Providence has so ordered affairs, that the
healthful prosperity of every man tends to promote the prosperity of every other man. Individual towns, counties, states and nations, all
141 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
help each other by every step thlat is made in
the direction of energy and thrift. The cars
of the New-York Central roll more majestically along, because the trains on the Illinois
Central are freighted with the wealth of an
empire.
No one can pass through our Southern
States, and not be saddened by the aspect of
forlorn and decaying villages; wretched cabins,
where a degraded race, of more than four millions, live a mere animal existence, in homes
which it seems mockery to call a home; abodes
of dreariness and discomfort, which a Northern
laborer, or a European peasant would scorn to
occupy for an hour. I have traversed England, France, Switzerland, Germany, and I do
aver that in all those lands you see no habitations to compare with the "nigger cabins" at
thle South.  These worn-out fields, these dilapidated dwellings, these poor, degraded white
men and women, with no incentive to work,
with all their energies paralyzed by those laws,
framed exclusively for the benefit of the slave
142 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
holder, present one of the most oppressive
aspects of gloom I have ever witnessed. The
poor whites!  Slavery  seems  almost  more
dreadful in its infliction upon them, than upon
the blacks.
I do not wonder that the determined slaveholder is so very anxious to prevent these poor
whites from learning how grievously they are
defrauded. I do not wonder that, bowie-knife
in hand, he watches the lips of the minister in
the pulpit; that he tells the editor what he may
say, and what he may not say; that he examines carefully every book before he will
allow it to pass into the non-slaveholder's
house; that he examines his list of newspapers
and periodicals, and decides what he may
take; and that he ransacks the raail, before it is
distributed, lest his defrauded white brother
should receive some chance pamphlet, which
might pour upon his darkened vision some
rays of the sun of liberty. What an awful, and
undeniably truthful revelation of the oppression of the non-slaveholding whites at the
143 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
Southi, is contained in the followiig words, of
George M. Weston.
" The non-slaveholding whites of the South,
being not less than seven tenths of the whole
number of whites, would seem to be entitled to
some inquiry into their actual condition; and,
especially, as they have no real political weight
or consideration in the country, and little opportunity to speak for themselves.  I  have
been for twenty years a reader of Southern
newspapers, and a reader and hearer of Congressional debates, but in all that time I do not
recollect ever to have seen or heard these nonslaveholding  whites, referred to by Southern
gentlemen as constituting any part of what
they call' the South."'
"' When the rights of the South, or its wrongs,
or its policy, or its interests, or its institutions
are spoken of, reference is always intended to
the rights, wrongs, policy, interests and institutions of the three hundred  and forty-seven
thousand  slaveholders.   Nobody  gets  into
Congress from the South but by their direc
l44 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
tion; nobody speaks at Washington for any
Southern interest except theirs.
"Yet there is at the South, quite another interest than theirs; embracing from two to three
times as many white people, and who are entitled to the deepest sympathy and commiseration, in view of the material, intellectual and
moral privations to which they have been subjected, the degradation to which they have
already been reduced, and the still more fearful
degradation to which they are threatened by
the inevitable operation of existing causes and
influences."
This poverty, ignorance, and debasement, are
not merely sectional. They constitute a national calamity, an element of impoverishment,
a running sore in the body-politic. The whole
Union is weakened by it; and though a vastly
greater calamity to the South than to the North,
it is a calamity of such magnitude, that the
whole nation is affected by it, and by the whole
nation it must be deplored.
7
145 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
Listen to the testimony upon this point, for it
is a vital one, of M. Tarver, of Missouri:
"The non-slaveholders," he says, in his report upon the Domestic Manufactures of the
South and West, " possess generally but very
small means; and the land which they possess
is almost universally poor, and so sterile that a
scanty subsistence is all that can be derived
from its cultivation; and the more fertile soil,
being in the possession of the slaveholders,
must ever remain out of the power of those
who have none. This state of things is a great
drawback, and bears heavily upon, and depresses the moral energies of the poorer classes.
"The acquisition of a respectable position in
the scale of wealth appears so difficult, that they
decline the hopeless pursuit; and many of them
settle dclown in habits of idleness, and become
the almost passive subjects of all its consequences. And I lament to say, that I have
observed of late years that an evident deterioration is taking place in this part of the population; the younger portion of it being less
146 
BLACKS AND WEITES.
educated, less industrious, and in every point
of view, less respectable than their ancestors."
One more witness I must bring upon the
stand. It is William Gregg, of South-Carolina,
who, in the following words, addressed the
South-Carolina Institute in the year 1851.
"From the best estimates that I have been
able to make, I put down the white people who
ought to work and who do not, or who are so
employed as to be wholly unproductive to the
State, at one hundred and twenty-five thousand.
Any man, who is an observer of things, could
hardly pass through our country without being
struck with the fact, that all the capital, enterprise, and intelligence, is employed in directing
slave-labor; and the consequence is, that a large
portion of our poor white people are suffered
to while away an existence in a state but one
step in advance of the Indian of the forest.
"We  have collected, at Graniteville, about
eight hundred people, and as likely a set of
country-girls as may be found, but deplorably
ignorant; three fourths of the adults not being
147 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
able to read or to write their own names. It is
indeed painful to be brought in contact with
such ignorance and degradation. Shall we pass,
unnoticed, the thousands of poor, ignorant, degraded white people among us, who, in this
land of plenty, live in comparative nakedness
and starvation! These may be startling statements, but they are, nevertheless, true; and if
not believed in Charleston, the members of our
Legislature, who have traversed the State, in
electioneering campaigns, can attest the truth."
What a view does this give us of the kind of
people South-Carolina is training up to support
our republican institutions! Free and enlightened Americans, indeed! If we turn to the
census of 1850, we find that the whole white
population  of the  State  of  South-Carolina
amounts to but two hundred and seventy-four
thousand five hundred and sixty-three; hardly
equal to one third of the city of NewYork. And yet, of this feeble population,
nearly a full half are in this state of brutal
ignorance and beggary. What an awful gulf
148 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
is this to whelm one of the States of the American Union!  Poor South-Carolina!  Must she,
can she, our sister State, sink lower than this?
There is hardly a county in the State of NewYork which is not now superior to the whole
State of South-Carolina in intelligence, in pecuniary resources, and in military power.
In view of similar results spreading their
baleful influence over the once beautiful, prosperous, and glorious State of Virginia, Charles
James Faulkner, in the Virginia iHouse of
Delegates, on the 20th of January, 1832, indignantly exclaimed:
"Does the slaveholder, while he is enjoying
his slaves, reflect upon the deep injury and
incalculable loss, which the possession of that
property inflicts upon the true interests of the
country? Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil;
it is an institution which presses heavily against
the best interests of the State. It banishes free
white labor; it exterminates the mechanic, the
artisan, the manufacturer. It deprives them of
occupation. It deprives them of bread. It
149 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
converts the energy of a community into indolence, its power into imbecility, its efficiency
into weakness.
"Sir, being thus injurious, have we  not a
right to demand its extermination? Shall society suffer, that the slaveholder may continue
to gather his cropg of human flesh?  What is
mere pecuniary claim compared with the great
interests of the  common  weal?   Must  the
country languish, droop, die, that the slaveholder may flourish? Shall all the interests be
subservient to one-all rights subordinate to
those of the slaveholder?  Hias not the mechanic, have not the middle classes their rights
-rights incompatible with the existence of
slavery?"
It is thus that slavery drags the whites with
the blacks down into the gulf of ignorance and
penury. And it is impossible to rescue the
poor white man without, at the same time,
liberating the negro, whose Ethiopian skin is
becoming so rapidly bleached by the infusion
of the blood of his master. But the slave
150 
BLACKS AND WHITES.
holder seems to watch more carefully to keep
the poor white man in subjection than he does
to guard the slave. He knows that the slave
is powerless, and, in case of an insurrection, can
soon be shot down. But should the poor whites,
at the South, begin to get their eyes open, and to
claim their rights, they could not so easily be
disposed of. R. R. Helper, of North-Carolina,
has raised an earnest cry in behalf of the pool
whites at the South; and did the world evei
before hear such a clamor as that with which
the single voice of HIelper has been met by
the slaveholders?   He "touched the sore," and
the whole civilized world has heard the scream
the touch extorted.
I can not flatter myself that even this humble
book will not be denounced as fanatical and
incendiary. I fear that no bookseller at the
South will dare to expose it upon his shelves,
that no postmaster will dare to deliver it from
the mail, and that no poor non-slaveholding
whites will be permitted to read it.  Gentlemen
slaveholders, does it pay to practice all this
151 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
vigilance and despotism, and to crush, actually,
millions of your own white brethren, merely
that you may be able to compel four millions
of negroes to work without wages? It is an
enormous price you pay in this world. And
then think of the next!
152 
CHAPTER VIII.
INSURRECTION: ITS MENACE AD PREVENTION.
Mfonday, Dec. 19. - At eight o'clock this
morning, I took the cars, and, crossing the
turbid flood of the Savannah, entered the State
of South-Carolina. It was a warm, unclouded
morning, and the sun, that wonderful beautifier,
illumined the landscape, and, as we glided
along over an undulating country, diversified
with groves and streams and wide-expanded
cotton fields, warmed and fertilized by a clime
so genial, one could not but exclaim, What a
favored region has God here provided for man!
Nature seems to have lavished her gifts in
richest abundance!
But what has man done to develop the resources thus placed at his disposal, and to
7* 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
embellish the garden thus given him to till and
to enjoy? Vast regions are in solitude. Many
fields are worn out by wasteful culture, and are
abandoned. Old plantation-houses, deserted by
their former inmates, are tumbling into ruins;
and the negro cabins, hardly superior to ordinary pens for pigs, in their rottenness and desolation, harmonize with the whole aspect of
decay. Occasionally we pass a mansion which
presents some little air of gentility, but even the
best of these residences have a lonely and unattractive aspect. But very little taste is expended in their external adornings.   The "n igger
cabins," in the vicinity, always look repulsive.
These residences are widely scattered, remote
from society, from schools, churches, shops,
libraries, post-offices, and markets.
The cabins of the negroes, when regarded as
homes for fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, are miserable indeed. I have not yet
been so fortunate as to see-one, in which there
was a pane of glass, or in which there appeared
to be more than a single room. I do not know
154 
INSURRECTION.
but that there are plantations where the most
tasteful cottages are reared for the negroes. I
only speak of what I see along my line of
travel.   In  all these  "cabins," a  hole  cut
through the wall, closed, occasionally, by a
rough board shutter, affords the only entrance
for light, except the door, and the chinks, often
very wide and numerous, between the logs,
boards or slabs which compose the building.
I never see a plot of green grass, a yard, a
shrub, or a flower. I have never yet passed
through any country so entirely destitute of all
picturesque, artistic beauty, the work of man's
hand, as are our slaveholding States. And
yet neither France, England, Switzerland nor
Germany, can present such a diffusive display
of taste as is gathered around the homes of the
free States. The appreciation of the beautiful,
attending the general expansion of intellectual
culture, is spreading with marvelous rapidity,
throughout the industrious and thrifty North.
This difference can only be attributed to the
difference in our social and political institu
155 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
tionr. It is very rare that I see here any newspapers offered in the cars; there is no aspect
of intelligence at the stopping-places, and the
poor whites seem as totally destitute of ambition as are the slaves.
Let. me mention one fact illustrative of this
want of intelligence, and of interest in passing
events. John Brown, for the attempt to emancipate the slaves by force, an attempt which,
is inexcusable and can not be too severely condemned and deplored, was hung in
Virginia, on the second day of December.
It was an event which arrested, apparently,
the attention of our whole country, North and
South, to a degree almost unparalleled in the
history of the nation. And yet, on Saturday
evening, December the 18th, sixteen days after
the execution of John Brown, a man in the
cars, of ordinary respectable appearance, inquired of another, with a yawn:  " Has Old
Brown  been  hung  yet?"  "No!"  was  the
reply.  "I believe not.  Some  of them got
away, I believe, but they have been caught
156 
ILNSURRECTION.
again; but none have as yet been hung."
At another time I heard two young men, over
twenty years of age, disputing whether in
writing 21, the 2 should come before or after
the 1.  This seems almost incredible.   But
when we remember that in benighted SouthCarolina, there are scores of thousands who can
neither read nor write their own names, such
ignorance ceases to be remarkable.
In such a community, elevated so slightly
in the scale of humanity; a community from
which Northern newspapers are excluded, and
where not even Southern newspapers can be
read, it is easy for unprincipled men to rouse
the masses to any violence. We no longer
wonder that, in the capital of the State, a mob
of three thousand could be collected to wreak
the most inhuman barbarity upon a poor Irish
stone-cutter, merely for expressing the opinion
that the institution of Slavery operated to the
prejudice of the poor whites. These wretched
dupes are taught that those at the North, who
are in favor of equal rights for all men, are
157 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
their bitterest foes, that they wish to make
them "no better than niggers," and that they
would be glad to incite the slaves to rise and
cut their throats! These unprincipled men do
every thing in their power to prevent the poor
whites from being undeceived. There is not
another spot on the globe where the censorship
of speech, and of the press, is so rigorous as it
now is in the slaveholding States.
We have a glorious country, a common
language, a common religion, and a Federal
Constitution which, notwithstanding it collntains some provisions that Washington deplored, and all good men must deplore, is, in
mny judgment, immeasurably better than that
of which any other nation can boast. It has
ever seemed to me that the framers of the
Constitution must have been divinely aided, so
wonderfully is that instrument calculated to
elevate and ennoble. We have but to glance
at our land, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf,
and from ocean to ocean, to see what our Constitution has accomplished in three quarters of
1     8 
INSURRECTION.
a century, notwithstanding the crying oppression it has perpetuated in seemingly sustaining
the slavery of four millions of our fellowcitizens.  With  Jefferson I call them  "citizens;" for in every fiber of my soul I loathe
and abhor the " Dred Scott Decision."  I had
rather have a mill-stone hanged about my
neck, and be cast into the depths of the sea,
than go to the bar of God with the blood of
that "Decision," as I understand it, resting
upon my soul.
We ought to be a happy and united people
— united, not in the endeavor to rob four millions of our fallen brethren of their wages-to
deprive them of all their social, civil and religious rights, and to doom them to perpetual
ignorance and debasement, but united in the
endeavor to elevate, instruct, and bless the
whole population.  We should take our feeble,
unfortunate, degraded "brother," for it is with
Jefferson that I call him "brother," by the
hand, and encourage him to rear a cottage in
the place of the "nigger cabin," into which our
avarice has thrust him; we  should establish
159 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
schools for his instruction, and urge him  to
send his sons and daughters there; we should
encourage him to subscribe for a newspaper, to
purchase books, to plant shrubbery and flowers, and to rear the church, that most beautiful
ornament, most efficient enlightener, and, in all
respects, most inestimable benefactor of every
population.
As I pencil these lines, my soul is saddened
by the aspect of ignorance, oppression and
debasement, which every where meet my eye.
We  are passing rapidly, in the cars, over the
plains  of Southi-Carolina.   The  sun  shines
brightly, and the landscape, save where  deformed by man's work, is lovely. We are at
this moment passing a vast cotton-field, spreading out over acres. It is beautiful, exceedingly
beautiful. The snowy fibers are bursting from
the bulbs, and the consciousness of the value
of the product, adds to the attractiveness of the
scene. There can be no agricultural employment more pleasant than the culture of the
cotton. We need but the abolition of Slavery
160 
INSURRECTION.
to whiten all these now abandoned fields with
the gorgeous harvest, and to spread over all
these lands, now being surrendered to desolation, farm-houses and villages, where comfort
and intelligence shall combine their smiles.
There is a "gang of  niggers" at work in
this cotton-field, and that "gang" dispels every
dream of beauty. Look at those coarse men,
bare-headed, seemingly soulless, grinning like
baboons!   Look at those women! can it be
that they are women! mothers I that any body
ever loved them! Look at those girls! Are
they daughters? Is it possible that they can
have any maiden modesty! They seem, in the
scale of being almost below the well-bred dog.
Humanity, instructed in a Northern clime,
sickens and weeps at the spectacle. They toil
all day in the field, with no hope to cheer,
perhaps with not even mind enough to be discontented. The iron has entered the soul, and
the rust is there.
At night they go to their "nigger cabin."
No neatly-spread table awaits them; no cheer
161 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
ful fireside, to invest with charms the chill,
damp, frosty night; not even a tallow-candle
to dispel the gloom. I have not yet seen in
Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia or Carolina, a
light in the evening in a negro hut. I should
infer from the appearance of most of these
negroes, that they are so debased that they
would not even care for one.   The father,
at the close of the day's work, does not put
the horse into the wagon, and take his wife and
daughters to the prayer-meeting, the lyceum
lecture, or to view the panorama, opening to
the eye the wonders of the Hudson, the Nile,
or the Rhine. Their souls are never stirred
by the mysterious harmonies of the concertroom, or by the silvery tones and polished
periods of Edward Everett, or by the irresistible humor of Irving or Dickens. History,
literature, science are all alike excluded from
their minds.
The  "niggers" bake, in  the ashes, their
corn-bread; and, on the floor, or perhaps on
wooden benches, eat their homely meal. And
162 
INSURRECTION.
then, in the darkness, throwing themselves down
on mats, or straw, as the case may be, males
and females, young and old, together, without
any change of their coarse, earth-soiled clothes,
sleep, thank heaven, sweetly. For here God
interposes, and in the slumbers of the night the
slave is perhaps more happy than his master.
Thus the monotony of the slave's dreary life
passes from the cradle to the grave. Childhood, youth, manhood, old age, come and go,
and there is no mental culture, no ambition, no
hope, no progress. And this is called being
"better off" than the laboring white man at
the North.
In lands of freedom, in England, France, and
with the free whites in America, the sons of
labor are continually rising to the highest posts
of emolument and honor. The coal-heaver's
boy becomes Lord Chancellor, the peasant's son
wins a coronet, and, from the log-house of the
humblest tiller of the soil, the child of penury
marches, with unfaltering step, to mansions of
opulence or to the halls of a listening Senate.
163 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
No energetic man at the North, no matter how
humbly born, need remain longin a log-house.
He may boldly strike his way into the forest
and tabernacle for a season, buoyant with hope
in a mere  camp.  But  this cabin he soons
abandons to his cows or his pigs. The cheerful cottage or the stately mansion rises on the
green lawn; and, year after year, he surrounds
his home with new  comforts and elegancies.
Hiis children, educated and refined, know
nothing of the hardships through which their
parents struggled. Blessed by the power of
the true democratic doctrine, "A career open
to talent, without regard to the distinctions of
birth," they can achieve all that they have
capacity to achieve, and every acquisition they
make adds to their ability to make further
acquisitions.
But with the slave, how different! "For
me," he must say, "there is no hope. Morning, noon, and night, for days, weeks, months,
and years, from the cradle to the grave, I must
remain the same poor, ignorant, debased beast
164 
INSURRECTION.
of burden. This miserable'nigger-cabin' must
be my only shelter until I die. The knowledge
I crave I can never enjoy. My spirit, crushed
and humiliated, forbids me from ever taking
my position as a man. HIad I the unconsciousness of a dog, my soul might be undisturbed.
But I am doomed to the endless agony of feeling that I am a man, while I have to remain in
the position of a beast."
A few years ago I dined with Mr. Frederick
Douglass, whom all the world knows by reputation, as a slave of commingled Ethiopian
and Caucasian blood, who fled from bondage,
who wrote an account of the wrongs he
had  endured, in  strains which  caused  the
ears of England and America to tingle,
and whose freedom was subsequently purchased by friends whom providence raised
up for his protection. There were several
gentlemen of distinction at the table, but Mr.
Douglass, in my judgment, was second to none
in social culture, in grasp of mind, in philosophical accuracy of thought. HIe is now an
165 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
exile in England, having fled from his own
country because he thinks, and his friends
think, that the South is clamorous for his
blood; and that under the Constitution there
is not, even in the North, any power to afford
him protection. In England he is received as a
gentleman of distinction, and is welcomed to
saloons where many of his vulgar persecutors
could, by no means, gain admission.
There are thousands of slaves at the South,
whose bosoms glow with the same indomitable
love of liberty, which inspires the energies of
Frederick Douglass. Perhaps two and a half
millions are in such Egyptian darkness that
they have but faint consciousness of their
wrongs-born in slavery's subterranean mines,
and delving there, without a ray of light, all
their days, they know not that there is any
gorgeous sun, or heaven-spread canopy, or
lakes and streams and forests and flowers of
freedom. Still there are thousands who have
caught some faint gleams of this blessed light,
and they hunger and thirst with "irrepressible"
intenseness to see and enjoy more.
166 
INSURRECTION.
Many of them, through untold miseries,
escape every year to Canada. Hiow terrific the
pressure must be which can induce them to
accept the doom of such an exile?  They must
separate themselves forever from their friends,
and can never visit them, or even hear from
them again. There can be no interchange of
loving letters. They leave all the associations
of childhood; fields which their fathers have
tilled; a warm and genial clime which they
love, and go in poverty and  friendlessness,
with bloodhounds baying on their track, to a
land of strangers, to icy winds and snow-clad
fields, there to find employment if they can;
perhaps to starve. But even all these sufferings, with liberty, they prefer to the doom of
slavery. It is said that over forty thousand
of the "citizens" of Thomas  Jefferson have
thus been driven from republican America
by the oppression of our laws.  The flag of
Queen Victoria enfolds them protectingly in its 
embrace.  England! with gushing hearts we
thank thee! And must an American write this?
167 
SOUTH AND NORTHI.
0 God of our fathers! come to our deliverance.
Nothing can more impressively show the
intolerable burden of slavery, than that so
many thousands are willing to brave even such
woes, that they may escape the scourgings
which they are no longer able to bear. It is
only when the flames of the burning steamer
blister the skin, that one plunges into the
turbid or  icy waves,  as the more tolerable
death.
I counted the "gang" of slaves in the cottonfield we have just passed. All told, men and
women, young and old, there were thirty-seven.
At a little distance there was a row of cabins,
called their "quarters;" and not far from these
wretched shanties, a lonely, unattractive, unembellishedl two-story house, which is the abode
of this moderate planter.
Now what is to be done with these poor
people, or for them? Shall we try to induce
them to run away?  Nothing can be more unjustifiable or cruel.  Where shall they run to?
168 
INSURRECTION.
and what shall they do when they get there?
These poor plantation negroes are as ignorant
and  helpless  as children.   Oppression  has
burned out their eyes and cut the sinews of all
their energies. It is far from improbable that
their master, born to this inheritance, and regarding it by no means as it is regarded by
those who breathe the air of liberty, is a humane
man, in the ordinary acceptation of that term.
Hie would scorn to treat his slaves with physical cruelty.  He never speaks to them in harsh
terms; he bears, with wonderful patience, their
great faults; if they are sick, if he does not
think they feign sickness, he has them cared
for tenderly, as tenderly as any Northern gentleman would nurse a valuable horse, or a
Devonshire cow. These slaves are worth fifteen hundred dollars perhaps, and their lives
and health are not to be trifled with. It is by
no means improbable that these poor slaves
love their master, and lick the hand that at
times caresses them. To advise them to run
8
169 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
away is like advising the horse or the ox to
abscond from the stable.
Shall we try to incite them to insurrection?
Almost the whole united North shouts, as with
a voice of thunder, no I ten thousand times ten
thousand, no! Imagination can conceive of
nothing more horrible than a servile insurrection. Plantations in flames, crops destroyed,
men brained by the bludgeons of infuriate negroes, as Senator Sumner was beaten down by
the bludgeon of Preston S. Brooks; mothers
and daughters pursued by burly savages, powerful in lust and cunning in vengeance.  The
storm would be so awful that the whole ener
gies of this nation would be instantly roused to
quell it. We should inevitably lose all sympathy for the slave, in our abhorrence of the
fiend-like outrages to which his ignorance and
debasement would surely lead him. A servile
insurrection could only result in misery to all,
drenching the fields of the South alike in the
blood of the whites and the blacks.
Even a successful insurrection, were it possi
170 
INSURRECTION.
ble, as it is not, would only place the slave in
a worse condition than now. He is as utterly
incapable of framing a constitution, of organizing legislatures, of establishing courts, and of
administering justice, as are the children in a
primary school. Misery, bloodshed, and starvation would be the only harvest gathered on
such a field. But such an event is impossible.
What can four millions of ignorant, unarmed,
unorganized slaves, humiliated and broken
spirited by ages of oppression, accomplish in
opposition to the power of the United States!
It is true that these poor creatures, goaded to
madness by some demoniac overseer, can, at
any time, spread devastation, flames, and blood
over a few plantations. There are small cities
and solitary villages they can easily lay in
ashes, and, for a few days, while a force is
gathering to crush them, they can create inconceivable dismay and woe, and glut themselves
with lust and vengeance. But then the bolt of
the white man's wrath would fall, and they
must inevitably perish.
171 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
These insurrections have ever been breaking
out in all slaveholding countries, through all
past times. They will continue to rise more
and more frequently, and with constantly increasing power and desolation. The spirit of
liberty is making wonderful advances; the
mind of the world is expanding, and the dungeon of the bondman is more and more penetrated by these electric powers. The degraded
slaves reason but little, have no intelligent consciousness of their weakness, and are easily
roused by those fiery impulses, which they
have in common with the lower animals. The
secluded districts at the South, have much to
fear from these sudden outbursts of frenzy,
with which they are ever menaced. The unparalleled consternation which the trivial movement at Harper's Ferry created, reveals the conscious peril of the South more forcibly than
words can tell. HIe who would incite the slave
to insurrection rolls a wave of misery over
the whites, and conducts the slave to inevitable
death.
172 
INSURRECTION.
I am aware that there are those who say, that
he who writes a word in condemnation of
Slavery, or in expression of sympathy for the
slave, exerts  an  influence,  greater or less,
should the slave chance to hear that word, to
render him discontented with his lot, and thus
increases the danger of insurrection. It will
probably be said that this appeal, which is
made not to the slaves, but to their oppressors,
is insurrectionary in its character, and should
be denounced as incendiary and fanatic. Just
as well may you say that God ought not to reward freedom with blessings, lest the slave
should see it and become dissatisfied with his
chains.
I can only say, that it is my desire and my
prayer to lead the South to that penitence and
amendment which shall save them from insurrection.  I have so strong an affection for multitudes of highly valued friends at the South,
and have such a full conviction that nothing
can save the South from a continued succession
of servile revolts, but the recognition of the
173 
SOUTHI AND NORTH.
principle, that the "laborer is worthy of his
hire," and that souls created in God's image
should not be doomed, by human laws, to ignorance, that I am willing to expose my name
to all the obloquy which, I am sure, that this
appeal will draw down upon it, hoping that
thus I may do something to avert, from every
Southern State, the doom of Egypt and of
HIayti. Our friends at the South do exceedingly misjudge us, when they think that we could
rejoice over their calamity.   There are bad
men at the North as well as at the South. But
I am sure that the desire, now so general and
earnest at the North, that our land should be
the land of Universal  Liberty, is a desire
founded in a friendly spirit to all men, and
not in a hostile spirit to any section of our
country.
The portents of danger, now menacing the
South, to us are appalling. We, at a little distance, see them probably more distinctly than
you do.  The free negroes are being reenslaved,
and the deadliest passions of rage and despair
174 
INSURRECTION.
must rankle in their bosoms. The intelligent
young slaves, from the hotels, and the streets,
and the wharves of the populous cities, where
they have acquired much energy and enlightenment, are being driven back to labor with the
brutal, half-beastly gangs on the plantations;
and the "plantation nigge?" presents the lowest
phase of humanity in the United States.
Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri,
with marvelous rapidity, are driving their colored population down upon the plantations of
the South. Mlany of these have more white
than black blood in their veins. They are the
children of sires who are regarded as men of
property and standing; they are conscious of
their lineage; their brothers and sisters, on their
father's side, ride in the carriages and dance in
the saloons of fashion. There are, among these
maddened men, many of genius, like that which
has given Frederick Douglass a name in two
hemispheres; many with energies, like those
which have rendered the name of Toussaint
L'Ouverture illustrious throughout the world.
175 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
The young white men from the slave States,
finding but little scope for their energies at
home, are leaving, by thousands, for the North
and the West. Among thirty millions of peo ple, the terrific power of " fanaticism" will find
many souls to fasten upon. That power is one
which neither stake nor gibbet can intimidate.
These "fanatics" will be continually rising under the delusion, that God has called them with
a Mosaic call to lead the children of bondage
into the Canaan of liberty. No earthly power
can prevent this. There are more John Browns
in the United States than the one recently hung
at Harper's Ferry.
There are mercenary shop-keepers among us
who care not what becomes of you or your children if they can only sell you goods. But the
masses of the people at the North, humane and
Christian, tremble in view of the doom which
is approaching.  "Apres  nous," said  Louis
XV., "le deluge;" after us, the delyuge.  Those
who entreated him to avert that deluge, by justice to the oppressed, were sent to the Oubliettes
176 
177
of the Bastile, or driven from the kingdom.
The deluge came. We know something of its
horrors.  Will you, brethren of the South, bequeath such a deluge to your children?   It
can be averted only by justice and humanity.
Am I your enemy, brethren, because I plead
with you to spare your children this doom? It
is easily done. All you have to do, is simply
to substitute hired, for slave labor; pay your
servants fair wages for their work.
As "love" is the fulfilling of the law, so is
the simple recognition of the principle, that
"the laborer is worthy of his hire," the panacea
for Slavery. Adopt this sentiment of God's
word, and there is no longer occasion to buy
and sell your fellow-men in the shambles; no
longer occasion to frame laws, dooming God's
children to ignorance and degradation; and
your emancipated brother has no longer any
motive for insurrection. Churches may then
rise in every village; free speech and a free
press stimulate all minds, and the cloud, now
so black and threatening, will be disarmed forever of its bolt.
INSURRECTION. 
CaEAPTER  IX.
TIE REMEDY FOR SLAVERY: ITS SIMPLICITY
AND SAFETY.
THERE is a general impression now, north of
Mason and Dixon's line, that the whole South
is in a blaze of fury against the people of the
non-slaveholding States. And if we are to
judge of public opinion at the South, by newspaper editorials, by speeches in convention, and
by Congressional debates, it must be so. The
following fact, explain it as any one may, is
worthy of record. I have passed through
Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and am now in
the heart of South-Carolina, and yet I have not
heard any where, in parlor, hotel, rail-car, or
steamboat, one single unkind or intemperate
word about the North. I have seen some edi 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
torials fiery enough to whelm the Union in
flames. But the tone of conversation, wherever
I have had an opportunity to listen to it, has
been invariably mild, and not unfriendly. I
had supposed that I should constantly hear the
Yankees and the "Black  Republicans"  denounced in very unsavory epithets; but, thus
far, I have not heard it in a single instance.
All day long we have been passing through
the central portions of South-Carolina; continually encountering aspects of desolation and
abandonment. We are now, as with my pencil I sketch these thoughts, passing one of those
deserted plantations, of which we so often hear.
The planter's mansion, windowless and doorless, presents the most gloomy picture of dilapidation.   The forsaken cabins of the negroes,
the old shed fbr the cotton-press, all the outbuildings pertaining to a plantation, have fallen
into decay. The former proprietor has probably left these exhausted fields, and has wandered away, with his gangs of semi-savage
slaves, to some distant lands, perhaps in Texas,
179 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
where, in almost barbaric life, he raises cotton,
that he may buy more slaves, and buys slaves,
that he may raise more cotton. Every where,
in the slave States, this aspect of premature
decayis visible, even in the youngest and the
freshest. It is comparatively but a few years
since Alabama was reclaimed from the forest
and the Indian. But listen to the testimony of
the Hon. C. C. Clay, of Alabama, respecting
the dilapidation which even now broods over
his native State.
"I can show you," he says, "with sorrow,
in the older portions of Alabama, and in my
native county of Madison, the sadcl memorials
of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton.
Our small planters, after taking the cream off
their lands, are going farther West and South,
in search of other virgin lands, which they may
and will despoil and impoverish in like manner.
In 1825, Madison county cast about three thousand votes; now she can not cast exceeding
two thousand three hundred.
"In traversing that county one will discover
180 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
numerous farm-houses, once the abode of indus trious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by
slaves, or tenantless, deserted and dilapidated.
He will observe  fields once fertile, now  unfenced, abandoned, and covered with those evil
harbingers-fox-tail and broom-sedge. iHe will
see the moss growing on the mouldering walls
of once thrifty villages, and will find' one only
master grasps the whole domain,' that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families.
Indeed, a country in its infancy, where fifty
years ago scarce a forest tree had been felled
by the axe of a pioneer, is already exhibiting
the painful signs of senility and decay, apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas."
Where can we find any thing in New-York,
Miassachusetts, or Connecticut, to compare with
this dismal picture? Massachusetts, occupying
a region comparatively cold, bleak, and barren,
is as a cultivated garden, in contrast with SouthCarolina. Busy cities, lovely villages, industry,
enterprise, picturesque villas and country seats,
reared in the most approved style of modern
181 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
architecture, every where meet the eye. The
commercial metropolis of the State, Boston,
with no cotton to export, and with a harbor
often blocked with ice, has attained a population
of one hundred and sixty-five thousand; and
the libraries of Massachusetts alone, exceed
those of all the slave States in the Union com
bined.
Hlow speedily would free labor, with the
dense population free labor secures, and with
the schools, churches, and mechanic arts, which
a dense population renders necessary, change
the whole aspect of dilapidated South-Carolina,
and of her little, antique commercial metropolis,
Charleston. I am aware that some at the North
think that the South are afraid to introduce the
system of paying their servants wages, instead
of holding them to work in bondage. It is a
common saying with ignorant people at the
North, that, should the planters emancipate
their slaves from compulsory service, and hire
them to work, the slaves would immediately
" cut their master's throats."
182 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
I am sure that every man at the South will
repel this cowardly suggestion with scorn. Are
we afraid of the negroes? Must we, twentyfive millions of white people, keep four millions
of poor, ignorant negroes tied, because we are
afraid to untie them! We, with Saxon blood
in our veins; we, with arms, intelligence, and
organization; with an army, a navy, arsenals,
and magazines; are we afraid that we can not
manage four millions of negroes by the power
of law?  None would resent such a suggestion
sooner than the South. " We no more fear our
negroes," says a Southern representative in
Congress, with a little pardonable exaggeration,
"than the Northerners fear their sheep."
Then again the experiment has been fairly
tried, on a scale sufficiently grand to be conclusive. When the slaves in the British WestIndies were emancipated, thirty years ago,
though they were eight hundred thousand in
number, and had long been suffering the
severest kind of slavery, and, to say the least,
were as unenlightened and debased as any
183 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
which can be found in the United States, it is
not known that a single drop of blood was
shed, that a single blow was struck, or a single
outrage committed.  All remembrance of past
wrongs seemed at once to be obliterated, and
joy and gratitude were the only emotions cherished in the hearts of the emancipated.
Dr. Channing, writing of that event many
years  after it took  place,  says: "History
contains no record more touching than the account of the religious, tender thankfulness
which this vast boon awakened in the negro
breast."
Prof. Hlovey, who visited the island some
years after the substitution of paid for compulsory labor, that he might investigate the results, testifies:
" The emancipated people, instead of becoming frantic with joy in the possession of their
new rights and privileges, and rioting in the
ebullition of ungoverned passions, retired from
their places of devotion to their little tenements,
without the commission of a single outrage, or
184 
REiMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
the least disorderly conduct.   The  day  was
characterized by the stillness and solemnity of
the Sabbath, rather than by the noise and tumult which usually, on such occasions, disgrace
more intelligent and civilized communities."
There are few passages in history more eloquent and affecting than the narrative, by
Thome and Kimball, of the manner in which
the slaves, on the island of Antigua particularly, received their freedom. On this island
there were thirty-four thousand five hundred
slaves, and but two thousand whites. Though
the British Parliament had decreed a system of
apprenticeship, under which, as a greatly modified form of slavery, the negroes were to continue, in a certain degree, subject to their masters for six years, the planters rejected this preparatory course, and pronounced in favor of
immediate emancipation.   They decreed that
upon the striking of the clock, at twelve o'clock
at night, of  the last day of July, ushering
in the first of August, 1834, every slave should
be instantaneously emancipated.   In the twi
185 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
light of that evening the slaves of Antigua
were seen, in their best attire, hastening along
the various footpaths of the plantations to their
places of worship.
"The spacious chapel of St. John's," write
Thome and Kimball," was soon filled with the
candidates for liberty. All was animation and
eagerness.  A mighty chorus of voices swelled
the song of expectation and joy; and, as they
united in prayer, the voice of the leader was
drowned in the universal acclamation of thanksgiving, and praise, and blessing, and honor, and
glory to God, who had come for their deliverance. In such exercises the evening was spent,
until the hour of twelve o'clock approached.
The presiding minister then proposed, that,
when the clock on the cathedral should begin
to strike, the whole congregation should fall on
their knees, and receive the boon of freedom in
silence.
"Accordingly, as the bell tolled its first note,
the immense assembly fell prostrate on their
knees. All was silence save the quivering,
186 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
half-stifled breath of the struggling spirit.  The
slow notes of the clock fell upon the multitude.
Peal on peal, peal on peal, rolled over the
prostrate throng, in tones of angel-voices, thrilling among the desolate chords and weary heartstrings.
"Scarce had the clock sounded its last note,
when the lightning flashed vividly around, and
a loud peal of thunder roared along the sky,
God's pillar of fire, and trump of jubilee. A
moment of profoundest silence passing, then
came  the burst: they broke forth in prayer,
they shouted, they sung glory hallelujah, they
clapped their hands, leaped  up, fell down,
clasped each other in their free arms, cried,
laughed, and went to and fro, tossing upwards
their unfettered hands -but high  above the
whole, there was a mighty sound which ever
and anon swelled up, it was the utterance, in
broken negro dialect, of gratitude to God.
"After this gush of excitement had spent
itself, and the congregation became calm, the
religious exercises were resumed, and the re
187 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
mainder of the night was occupied in singing
and prayer, in reading the Bible, and in addresses from the missionaries, explaining the
nature of the freedom just received, and exhorting the free people to be industrious, steady,
obedient to the laws; and to show themselves,
in all things, worthy of the high boon which
God had conferred upon them."
Such was the affectionate, religious gratitude
which the gift of freedom awakened in the
negro breast. The succeeding day, the first
day of their emancipation, was passed as a
sacred jubilee.   There were no  intemperate
carousings, no mobs in city or country, but
the rejoicing freemen met in their churches
with their pastors, who, with martyr zeal, had
suffered and toiled for them, and offered to
God the incense of thankful hearts.
Such is the uncontradicted testimony upon
this point.   "I hazard  nothing in saying,"
writes Prof. Hiovey, who visited the island
several years after the emancipation, "that the
people of Antigua are as free from any appre
188 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
hension of riot or insurrection, as is the most
peaceful village in New-England.  The militia,
which was frequently on duty during slavery,
and especially on the Christmas holidays, has
not been called out, for the purpose of preserving the public peace, since the day of emancipation."
The fact is settled, conclusively settled, that
there is no danger in substituting free, for slave
labor. This experiment has been tried, not
upon one island alone, where peculiar circumstances might favor its success, but in nineteen
of the slave colonies of the British empire.
The result, in every instance, was perfect safety.
The danger lies only in compelling men to
work without wages. They know that this is
wrong and feel maddened by it. The smothered passions of the oppressed are ever struggling
to break forth. Emancipation, and the guardianship of impartial law, dispel this danger.
There is no longer any motive for insurrection,
and all are equally interested in the public
peace.
189 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
But it is said by some that negroes, mulattoes, quadroons, and quinteroons, will not work
under the influence of wages; they can only be
led to labor by compulsion. In emphatic reply
to this, I would refer the reader to the petition
of the Georgia planters to the Legislature of
Georgia, to which I have referred. Alarmed
by the industrial energy the colored people are
manifesting, and the property they are acquiring, these men pray that the slaves may not be
permitted to hire their own time, to own cabs,
drays, and baggage-wagons, or to take contracts
for work as mechanics.
On the levee at New-Orleans the negro gang,
under a negro foreman, inspired by wages, would
accomplish as much, and often, I am told by
shipmasters, more than any gang of Irishmen or
Germans. The poor fellows are now driven
away from the city, where light would penetrate their darkened minds, to the gloom of
the plantation, where no glimmer can tremble
upon the eye-ball, and where they are indeed
entombed.
190 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
It is said that the free negroes, in the slave
States, are very indolent. Of course they are.
They are almost as shiftless and miserable as
the poor whites. Every effort is made, by the
whites, to keep them degraded and ignorant
and wretched. Who will have free negroes to
work in the midst of his slaves?  What slaveholder wishes to see an intelligent, industrious,
and thrifty community of blacks in the vicinity
of his bondmen, to show them the joys and
the prosperity of liberty? No! to hold the
slaves in bondage, it is necessary that those,
belonging to their class, who chance to be free,
should be kept so degraded that they may be
pointed at as warnings-so that it may be said:
"Slavery is much better for the negro than
freedom."
A friend of mine, descending the Mississippi
a few years ago, landed at Vicksburg, and
called a colored man, whom he chanced to see,
to take his trunk to the hotel. A young man,
standing in the door of a store, cried out,
"Here is a white man employing a free nig
191 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
ger;" and my friend informed me that he did
not know but that he should be lynched for
his inadvertence.
When the question of West-Indian emancipation was discussed in the British Parliament,
it was said by many, and feared by more, that
the moment the restraints of slavery were
sundered, the negroes, spurning all control,
would abandon the plantations and wander
about in vice and beggary; that they, cherishing the idea that freedom from work is the
choicest privilege of liberty, would resist every
inducement to labor, and that universal misery
would be the result.
But the experiment demonstrated that the
negro loved his wife and child, and home and
friends as well as the white man.  He felt no
disposition to abandon his family, now that he
and they were cheered by freedom, and to
wander away a fugitive and a vagabond. He
had it now in his power to surround his home
with new attractions; and he loved his wife
and children better than even before, now he
192 
.
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
could press them to his bosom and call them
his own.
It was found that upon all those  estates
where the slaves had been treated with any
degree of humanity, they were eager to remain
and work for their former masters for the most
reasonable wages. The negro race is peculiarly
an affectionate and clannislh race. They love
strongly their homes and the associations of
place, and have but little disposition to wander.
Wihen wages were substituted in the WestIndies,  instead of the lash, the terms usually
offered on the plantations were, the occupancy
of  th e h umble dwellings in which they had
lived, the right of cultivating a small portion
of ground, and eleven pence a day, which is
about twenty-four cents of our money, for their
work.  The force of early attachments was so
strong, thlat, on these terms, thle freed slaves
almost universally preferred to remain on the
old plantations amidst scenes and associations
endeared to them by time. As a general rule,
no            difficulty was found in cultivating the plant
9
193 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
ations; and it is universally testified, that under
the healthly stimulus of wages, the emancipated
slave has developed a degree of energy and
skill which has surprised the planters.
Upon this all-important point the testimony
of Prof. Hovey is as follows:
"As one of the greatest evils apprehended
from emancipation, was, that the negroes would
not work, I deem it of the utmost importance
to say, that on those estates which have conciliating and judicious managers, which give
job work in due proportion, there has been no
falling off in labor.  Such estates were never
under better cultivation, and, in many cases,
even with a diminished number of laborers,
I was repeatedly assured, that should the
crops be ever so great, they might be taken
off without difficulty; and that no person
would hesitate to commence any enterprise
whatever, from an apprehension that laborers
could not be obtained."
"It was formerly found almost impossible,"
Prof. Hovey continues, "to introduce any new
191 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
utensils of husbandry. The negro would proceed in his old and indolent way, rejecting all
innovations. For instance, a gentleman purchased a lot of wheel-barrows, with the intention of having the negroes use them, instead
of baskets, to carry out manure. But they,
not fancying these new notions, loaded the
wheel-barrows, and mounted the whole  upon
their heads.
" Now, they eagerly avail themselves of all
the facilities to expedite work. It is generally
admitted,that they now perform as much work
in forty-five hours, as they did formerly in all
the week. No difference can be seen between
them and white people in their eagerness to
work for pay."
Mr. Buxton, an English gentleman, whose
name is renowned in the annals of philanthropy, writes:
"Let it not be imagined that the negroes,
who are not working on the estates of their old
masters, are, on  that  account, idle.  Even
these are, in general, busily employed in culti
195 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
vating their own grounds, in various descriptions of handicraft, in lime-burning or fishing,
in benefiting  themselves or the community,
through some new but equally desired
medium.
"Besides all this, stone walls are built, new
houses erected, pastures cleaned, ditches dug,
meadows drained, and numerous other operations effected, the whole of which, before emancipation, it would have been a folly even to
attempt.  The old notion," he continues, "that
the negro is a lazy creature, who will do no
work at all, except by compulsion, is now
forever exploded."
One single fact precludes the necessity of all
further testimony upon this point; it is the
ever memorable fact stated by Mr. Gurney,
that in the sixth year of freedom, after a fair
trial of five years, the exports of sugar from
Antigua, almost doubled the average of tihe
last five years of Slavery.
"By  whose  hands,"  writes Mr.  Gurney,
"was this vast crop raised? By tle hands
196 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
of the lazy and impracticable race, as they
have often been described, the negroes. And
under what stimulus has the work been effected? Solely under that of moderate wages."
Thus is the fact established, that the emancipated slaves, under the influence of wages,
may become industrious and thriving laborers.
We want all these laborers. Not one of them
can be spared.
In New-England, thousands  of them  are
needed. Hiow many an exhausted wife and
mother would find her heart gladdened this
day, and would offer those thanks to God,
which bring tears to the eye, if a good, healthy
colored girl or woman, could be sent to the
family. I have, and have had for years, such
a treasure.   And  were  she in  Liberia,  I
would pay a high price to bring her here.
Many hundred thousands could this day be
employed in the North, with wages varying
from one dollar to two dollars a week. I
can hardly conceive of a richer blessing which
Heaven could confer upon the wives and
197 
SOUTHI AND NORTIH.
mothers scattered over the rural districts of
New-England, than to send them a supply of
such servants. The North is in such an astonishing state of prosperity, that native Americans can generally do better than to go out
to domestic service.  We are almost entirely
dependent upon Irish and German emigrants.
And I have often been under the necessity of
going to New-York, four hundred miles, and
bringing such servants down to Maine.
In my own family we have had many excellent servants from the European emigrants;
but we have never had servants more capable,
more industrious, more devoted to our interests, feeling that they were one with us, than
those of African descent. And we have never
dreamed that our home would be more happy,
or that our servants would love us more, or
serve us more faithfully, if we owned them as
property, and could threaten, in case of disobedience, to send them to the whipping-post,
or the auction-block. Brethren of the South!
I am not a fanatic, or your enemy, because I
198 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
implore you to adopt this system, and thus
do the only thing, which, by any possibility,
can be done, to restore peace to our distracted
country.
Surely I do not suppose that this change can
be effected without encountering some friction, and meeting obstacles which wisdom and
energy alone can surmount. But is there no
friction now? Are there no obstacles now in
our way?   Does  the  car of  Slavery  run
smoothly along its track? Upon the introduction of this change, there will doubtless be
thousands of servants, maids in families, who
desire no more freedom, so far as personal
movement is concerned, than they have always
had. Such a girl will say to her mistress,
whom she loves and has always loved, or such
a man will say to the indulgent master to
whom he is so much attached, that he has no
desire to leave his service, or to receive more
than he has been receiving.
"If you will give me a home, and take care
of me for the rest of my days, I will ask
199 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
nothing more, and will serve you to the best
of my ability."
If the master kindly says: "In addition to
this, I will give you a small sum each week,
that you may have a little pocket-money," how
entirely is the relationship changed, and how
pleasant is the new aspect of affairs!  There is
no longer buying and selling-,-heart-crushing
separations-slave-shambles! no more fugitive
slave-laws, or blood-hounds; no more reenslaving the free, no more cruel enactments, to
disgrace the nation and the age, dooming to
eternal ignorance, immortal beings, created in
tile image of God.  We  then extend helping
sympathy to our weaker  brotiher, place  the
spelling-book and the Bible, those chiefest of
all ennoblers, in his hand, and encourage him
in the development of that whole nature, physical, moral and intelleetual, with which  God
has endowed him, so that when, in his full
redemption, he stands up proudly, and says:
"Am  I not a man  and a brother?" we as
proudly respond: "You are! You are!"
200 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
And  now, brethren of the South, will you
call me a fanatic and your enemy, because, deploring the wrongs inflicted upon our colored
brother, and deploring the agitations which are
making our country wretched, I entreat you,
in your wisdom, to devise some measure by
which you can substitute paid labor for compulsory labor?  I only ask you to do that which
we at the Northl do, which every enlightened
nation on the globe does, excepting two hundred thousand slavehlolders, all told,  in  the
South.*
* Mr. H. R. iEelper, in his Impending Crisis, after giving
a tabular view of the number of slaveholders in the United
States, according to the census of 1850, says:
"It thus appears that there are, in the United States, three
hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred and twentyfive slaveholders. But this appearance is deceptive. The actual number is certainly less than two hundred thousand.
Prof. De Bow, the Superintendent of the Census, informs us,
that' the number includes slave-hirers,' and furthermore that
'where the party owns slaves, in different counties, or in
different States, he will be entered more than once.' Now
every Southerner, who has any practical knowledge of af            9*
201 
SOUTII AND NORTH.
We pay our servants for their work.  When
my washerwoman brings home my  linen, I
place the half or three fourths of a dollar, a
dozen, in her hands, instead of threatening
to whip her if she does not do the washing
for me.  And I find that the solid money accomplishes the purpose perfectly, far better than
fairs, must know, and does know, that every New-Year's day,
like almost every other day, is desecrated in the South, by
publicly hiring out slaves to a large number of non-slaveholders.
"With the statistics at our command, it is impossible for us
to ascertain the exact number of slaveholders and non-slaveholding slave-hirers in the slave States; but we have data
which will enable us to approach very near to the facts."
After a careful computation, which seems to be philosophically accurate, he says: "We find, as the result of our calculations, that the total number of actual slaveholders in the
Union is precisely one hundred and eighty-six thousand five
hundred and fifty-one, as follows:
Number of actual slaveholders in the United
States............................. 186,551
Number entered more than once........... 2,000
Number of non-slaveholding slave-hirers,... 158,974
Aggregate number according to De Bow,...347,525."
202 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
the gory whip could do. Now, why should
not you do the same? All we ask of you is,
that you should pay your servants fair wages.
This is not a very hard requirement. And this
settles the whole question. And nothing else
can settle it.
It is in vain to hope that all the nations will
abandon their principles, consolidated by the
teachings of ages, that " the laborer is worthy oj
his hire."   It is vain to imagine  that  two
hundred thousand slaveholders can convince
the rest of the world that it is "wise, just, and
beneficent" to compel men to work without
wages, and consequently to be compelled to
keep them in ignorance that they may not
know how deeply they are wronged; to enact
fugitive laws to catch them, when they endeavor to escape, and, as an essential part of
the  system,  to  have  fathers  and mothers,
brothers and sisters, sold in the market, like
horses and oxen. The religion of the world,
the literature of the world, the political economy of the world, the conscience of the world,
is against the slaveholder.
203 
SOUTH ANTD NORTH.
Now  which is most reasonable to require,
that in this conflict the' millions of all enlightenedl nations should yield to two hundred thousand people who are unwilling to pay their
servants wages, or that this handfil of slaveholders should yield to the public sentiment of
Christendom?   Here is the point.   All the
rest of the world must yield, or the two hundred thousand slaveholders must yield, or there
must  be an eternal, "irrepressible conflict."
There is not an intelligent man in Europe or
America, who can deny that this is putting the
question fairly.
Brethren  of the  South! this subject,  as
thus presented, does merit your calm and
unimpassioned reflection.   You  are deceived
when you imagine that a mere handful of
noisy fanatics are puffing the bellows of senseless rage.  It is a real norther; the whole force
of the air of a hemisphere which  is pressing
down upon the Gulf of Slavery. Can this be
arrested by resolutions and menaces? These
menaces will bring those upon their knees who
204 
REMEIDY FOR SLAVERY.
are so anxious to sell you goods, that they are
willing to throw in their principles to bootif they have any; and they will declare that the
system of defrauding the laborer of his hire,
and plucking out the eyes of the mind, and
selling helpless girls to debauched men, is
"wise, just, and beneficent."  But such pitiable
exhibitions of poor human nature, in its worst
estate, are even more despised at the South
than at the North.
It has never yet been my misfortune to meet
personally with a man, at the North, in favor
of the dissolution of this Union. I am aware
that there are a few, a very few, of those who
are  usually called  "ultra-abolitionists,"  and
with whom the North is in but little sympathy,
who have proclaimed this desire. They wish
for disunion, for they know, and every intelligent man in our country knows, that disunion
is abolition, and perhaps even bloody abolition;
and they are willing to accept the evil of the
blood, for the good of the abolition. But this
number is so small that, extensive as is my
205 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
acquaintance, I have never yet met with the
man at the North who advocated disunion.
And here let me make a remark which I am
sure will astonish my Northern brethren. On
this trip to Cuba and the South, we had, in the
steamer which took us from New-York to
Havana and New-Orleans, one hundred and
eighty passengers, who were mostly Cubans or
Southerners.  At New-Orleans I spent several
days, and was introduced to a large number
of friends; I crossed Lake Pontchartrain in a
crowded steamer to Mobile; visited friends
there; ascended the Alabama four hundred
miles to.Montgomery in one of the large riverboats, filled with Southern passengers; and
thence, in rail-cars, passed through the heart
of Alabama, Georgia, South-Carolina, NorthCarolina, and Virginia, and during this whole
route, in ocean-steamer, river-steamer, rail-car,
parlor, and hotel, I did not meet one single
individual who advocated disunion!
For aught I know, there may have been
thousands in that region in favor of disunion,
206 
REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.
whom I did not meet; but I did not converse
with a single one who advocated such views.
On the contrary, I met many who spoke in
tones of sadness of the bitterness of the strife,
and who deplored the idea of any separation
between  the North and  the South.   As I
perused the fierce denunciations in Congress,
I was often led to inquire: "Where do these
fiery spirits come from? and whom do they
represent?"
207 
C lA PTEIR X.
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WVAGES.
ON this tour I have been continually meeting with incidents illustrative of the impolicy
of attempting to compel people to work without wages. In conversing one day with a
gentleman, a slaveholder, as we were ascending
the Alabama river, he said:
"These servants are a heap of trouble. You
often do not know what to do with them. I
own four as good women as you can find in the
State; and yet they almost worry my wife's
life out.  When  I am  away,  they take the
advantage, and are impertinent  and willful.
When I last went home, my wife had a long
story of complaints. I called up Phillis, and
said to her:'Now, -Phillis, I am going to sell 
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   209
you. You are saucy to your mistress. You
are fit for nothing but a plantation nigger, and
want a stern driver to make you know your
place. I am going to sell you to one of those
French planters down in Louisiana.  I won't
be plagued with you any more.'
"This frightened Phillis terribly, and she
will be as good as honey for a few days; but
then she will forget it all, and will be as bad as
ever. I tell you these niggers are a heap of
trouble. You don't want to take a woman
and whip  her.   And  that only makes  her
mad and worse. You can't dismiss her. And
you don't exactly want to sell her. I tell you
they are a heap of trouble."
This, certainly, is natural. She must have a
wonderfully sweet disposition, who will work
all her days as a kitchen scullion, from the
cradle to the grave, kept in the state of most
debasing ignorance, with no moral culture, and
with no remuneration but such fare and dress
as a scullion can find in a "nigger kitchen,"
and yet ever manifest an affectionate, faithful 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
and docile spirit. Virtues and graces can not
be bought at that price.
Another gentleman remarked to me, that
people, in New-Orleans particularly, were getting very much in the habit of employing
white servants, Irish and German, in their
families, instead of slaves.
"It requires a great deal of knowledge of
the negro character," said he, "to know how to
manage these creatures. A lady rises in the
morning, and finds that her cook is still in bed,
affirming that she has a dreadful headache, or
a severe attack of rheumatism. There are ten
chances to one it is all a sham, and yet perhaps the humane lady will spend two or three
days, nursing the artful deceiver. They are
often very cunning. Perhaps the lady suspects
that it is all sham, and yet is not certain that it
is, and shrinks from the possibility of treating
the servant cruelly. There are a great many
such  embarrassments.   The  best place  for
these poor creatures is on the plantation, where
men who understand them can manage them."
210 
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   211
The payment of wages rectifies all this. If
you will not work, neither shall you eat. A
humane man, not thoroughly acquainted with
negro tricks and cunning, who has one of these
slaves, shamming sickness, does not know what
to do with her. Hie does not wish to whip
her; he does not wish to sell her. The only
remedy is a general system of the substitution
of wages, instead of compulsion. The hired
servant at the North, will work when hardly
able to work, lest both place and wages should
be lost.
A kind Providence has thrown light upon
our path, in reference to this great question, so
that we need not go stumbling over a dark and
unknown road. The experiment in the West
Indies has answered all our questions, and
solved our difficulties. It was feared that the
slaves, with no stimulus to work but the
wages they might receive, would lie down and
die in nakedness and starvation.
The Rev. Mr. Cadman, a clergyman, residing
in the West-Indies, wrote some time after the 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
emancipation: "The change for the better in
the dress, demeanor, and welfare of the people
is prodigious."
"A  female proprietor," Mr. Gurney writes,
"who had become embarrassed, was advised
to sell off part of her property in small lots.
The experiment answered her warmest expectations. The emancipated slaves in the neighborhood, bought up all the little freeholds, with
extreme eagerness, made their payments faithfully, and lost no time in settling on the spots
which they had purchased.
"They  soon  framed  their  houses,  and
brought  their gardens  into  useful  cultiva:
tion, with yams, bananas, plantains, pineapples  and  other  fruits  and  vegetables,
including plots of sugar-cane. In this way,
Augusta and Liberta sprung up as if by
magic.  I visited several of the cottages, in
company with the rector of the parish, and
was surprised by the excellence of the buildings, as well as by  the neat furniture, and
cleanly little articles of daily use, which we
212 
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   213
found within. It was a scene of contentment
and happiness, and I may certainly add, of
industry.
"A  wonderful scene we witnessed on Sabbath morning," continues the same writer.
"The minister of the Baiptist church was so
obliging, as to invite us to hold our meeting
with his flock.  Such a flock we bad not seen
before, consisting of nearly three thousand
black people, chiefly emancipated slaves, attired after their favorite custom, in neat white
raiment, and most respectable and orderly in
their demeanor and appearance. They appeared both to understand and appreciate the doctrines preached on the occasion. The congregation has greatly increased, both in numbers
and in respectability, since the date of full
freedom. They now entirely support a new
mission, and are enlarging their chapel at an
expense of five thousand dollars."
Volumes of authentic testimony might be
quoted, corroborative of this point. In almost
every particular, the condition of the slave has 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
been meliorated by the substitution of wages
for the lash. The marriage rite has become
sacred.  Home has been surrounded with new
charms. Sabbath-schools are established, and
churches sustained and thronged. The emancipated slave lives in a better dwelling than
before; wears better clothing, eats better food;
his children are better educated, and his family
enjoy, to a vastly higher degree, all those influences which tend to purify and ennoble
human character.
Though very much remains to be done in
elevating a fallen race from the degradation of
ages, the emancipated negro has proved that he
takes much better care of himself, than his master took of him. No well-informed man will
again say that the slave, if freed, will starve;
that the stimulus of wages is not sufficient to
incite him to work.
It is often said, that the master, if deprived
of the unpaid service of the slave, will be
reduced to beggary. But the master owns his
land, his houses, his stock, and will own his
214 
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   210
crop, and can surely pay the laborer a suitable
proportion of that crop for his services, in its
culture. The Northern farmer can do this with
his wheat and his hay. Why can not the
Southern farmer do this with his sugar and his
cotton? Hiere are the servants at his door all
ready and eager to work for the most moderate
wages. Surely there is no man more favorably situated than he for the accumulation of
wealth.
The experiment in the West-Indies, proves
that emancipation enriches, rather than impoverishes the master. The plantations, instead of falling into decay, have often flourished
with new vigor. The planter has found that
he can cultivate his estate cheaper, and make
greater profits when his laborers are animated by
wages, than when they are driven by the lash.
The Governor of Antigua, after six years of
the experience of free, instead of slave-labor,
says: "The pecuniary saving on many of the
estates in Antigua, of free for slave-labor, is at
least thirty per cent." 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
" The quantity of work," Mr. Gurney testifies, "obtained from a freeman, is far beyond
the old task of the slave. In the laborious occupation of holing, the emancipated negroes
perform double the work of the slave in a day.
In road-making, the day's task under Slavery,
was to break four barrels of stone.  Now, by
job-work, a weak hand will fill eight barrels,
and a strong one from ten to twelve."
"I had rather," testifies a planter in Jamaica,
"make sixty tierces of coffee under freedom,
than even a hundred and twenty under Slavery. Such is the saving of expense, that I
make a better profit by it. Nevertheless, I
mean to make one hundred and twenty as heretofore."
" Real estate since emancipation, has so
much risen in price," says the Governor of
Antigua, "that at the lowest computation, the
land, without a single slave upon it, is fully as
valuable now, as it was, including all the
slaves, before emancipation."
Robert Claxton, the Solicitor General of St.
216 
THE NOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   217
Christopher's Island, testifies: "This property
of mine, was worth only ten thousand dollars
with the slaves upon it. Now, without a sing]e slave, it is worth three times as much
money. I would not sell it for thirty thousand
dollars. This remarkable rise in the value of
property, is by no means confined to particular
estates."
It is needless to multiply this testimony,
which could be done to almost any amount. I
am aware that there are rumors floating, contradictory to these statements. But it will be
observed that my appeal is not to rumor, whose
reputation for veracity does not stand very
high, but to the well-authenticated statements
of reliable men.*
Now this is the change which the North
wishes to see introduced to the South-the substitution of wages instead of compulsion, to induce labor. We wish to see the Southern
* The reader will find the above citations verified in the
interesting narrative of Thome and Kimball, and of Prot
Ilovey.
10
1, 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
Legislatures introduce prompt and vigorous
measures for the promotion of that system of
free labor, which is adopted in almost every
other portion of the civilized world. Their
wisdom will suggest such laws, just and impartial, as may be required by the new order of
things; laws based upon character, irrespective
of color, binding equally upon all. The negroes
should be offered fair wages for their work,
with the liberty which this essentially involves,
of seeking employment wherever they may best
promote their own interests. There is no reason why the Southern gentlemen should not, as
well as the Northern, pay the laborer who saws
his wood, or ploughs his field, or gathers in his
harvest. We only ask him to do that which
every Englishman, and Frenchman, and Italian
does; pay a fair day's wages for a fair day's
work, and thus bring himself into harmony
with the rest of the world. The result of such
an emancipation is not problematical. The experiment has been tried in nineteen English
slave colonies, upon a mass of eight hundred
218 
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   219
thousand slaves, and with entire success. Men
are now incited to work by wages in India,
,China, Africa, Turkey, Russia, in the islands
of the Pacific, among all tribes and nations.
Why  should two  hundred  thousand slaveholders persist in withholding wages from their
servants, and thus place themselves in opposition to all the rest of the world, keep all these
United States in turmoil, and endanger the
most important experiment of liberty which
was ever tried upon this globe? It is utterly
inexcusable. It is a burning shame.
Gentlemen of the South, I repeat the asseveration, that I am not your enemy because I
entreat you to introduce this change, and give
our country peace. Thirty millions of people
are kept in continual agitation, and bitterness
and strife increase every hour of every day,
menacing great national disasters, because you,
brethren of the South, you, two hundred thou sand only, a number hardly superior to that of
two or three of the Wards in the single city of
New-York, persist in refusing to pay your ser
1I., 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
vants wages. And because I entreat you, in
the name of humanity, to give us peace, will
you denounce me as a fanatic, and an incendiary-offer a reward for my head-forbid your
mails to carry this book, forbid the non-slaveholding whites at the South to read it, and order it to be burned at the hands of the common
hangman! Believe me, gentlemen, such conduct does not reflect honor on your intelligence.
This is not the way, in the nineteenth century,
to meet the most momentous question, so far as
our country is concerned, which that century
has called up. You can not dam up the Gulf
Stream, by dumping mud into the Gulf of
Mexico.
The moral and religious influence of the substitution of free for slave labor in the WestIndies is worthy of especial notice.
"There is one point," writes Mr. Gurney,
"which embraces and outweighs all the rest.
I mean the diffusion of vital Christianity. I
know that great apprehensions were entertained
lest, on the cessation of Slavery, the negroes
220 
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   221
should break away at once from their masters
and their ministers. But freedom has come;
and, while their masters have not been forsaken,
their religious teachers have become dearer to
them than ever.
"Under the banner of liberty, the churches
and meeting-houses have been enlarged and
multiplied; the attendance has become regular
and devout. The congregations have been, in
many cases, more than doubled; above all, the
conversion of souls, as we have reason to believe, has been going on to an extent never be fore known in these colonies. In a religious
point of view, the wilderness, in many places
has indeed begun to blossom as the rose."
Such has been the result of emancipation in
the British West-Indies, and such is the change
which every Christian patriot must desire to
see introduced into the slaveholding States of
our Union. The path of duty is henceforth a
plain one, if there be only, in the hearts of those
who have the power, a willingness to do their
duty. 
SOUTH A-ND NORTH.
There is no embarrassment in the question,
"What is to become of the slaves if we adopt
the system of free labor?" We want every
one of them. In the West-Indies, instead of
sending any away, they are doing every thing
in their power to induce more to come, and
join the eight hundred thousand free laborers,
who are now tilling those beautiful ocean isles.
The United States, at this hour, need laborers,
more than any thing else. We have millions
of acres waiting for the plough of the cultivator. We have vast crops of corn, and hay,
and sugar, and cotton, and wheat, which require the strong arms of industry, and the
shout of free voices, welcoming the harvest
home. The very moment that free labor is introduced we shall hear no more of the "nuisance" of having strong and docile men ready,
for moderate wages, to till our soil. A kind
Providence has spread them over the fertile
fields of the country, instead of accumulating
them in the cities. They are now just where
they are needed. They understand just the
222 
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   223
work we wish them to do. They are acclimated.   Their humble cabins are built, and
they are so accustomed to them that, cheered
by hope, they can endure them a little longer,
until they can rear respectable homes. Schools
may be established, and a race may thus be
lifted from the lowest debasement to manhood.
Tell me not that this is fancy, speculation, a
UTtopian vision. It is fact. The thing has just
been done before our eyes. All that we want
is the willnUg mind. The Southern slavehoIders,
for they now wield the whole political power of
the South, the non-slaveholders, the poor whites,
having but little more influence in public af fairs than the slaves themselves, should, in their
Legislatures, by the enactment of laws, similar
to those passed in the British Parliament, eminan cipate their slaves from compulsory labor, and
substitute the system of free labor. The great
agony will then be over, and we are at peace.
Laws should unquestionably be passed adapted
to the new order of things; laws prohibiting
vagrancy, encouraging education, and stimula 
SOUTIH ANID NORTITH.
ting every branch of industry; laws based upon
character, not color; laws embracing equally
Ethiopian and Caucasian. If the elective franchise be withheld, as it ought to be, from the
negro, who is ignorant and debased, let it also
be withheld from the white man, whether native or foreign born, who has sunk to the same
level. If the negro acquire intelligence, property, moral worth, and thus prove himself a
valuable citizen, let him enjoy the same political privileges which the Irishman, or the German, or the Yankee may enjoy under the same
circumstances.
Let every man, irrespective of color, be offered fair wages for his work. Let every man,
irrespective of color, be encouraged to make
the most of himself he can, intellectually,
morally, and physically. Let every man, irre
spective of color, be permitted to seek such employment, and such employers, as may best
promote his own interests. This is democracy,
and we call ourselves democrats. I am a democrat, and mean to be a consistent one; a
democrat in its true etymological sense.
224 
THE MOTIVE POWER OF WAGES.   225
The slaves, thus converted into freemen, with
their long-lost rights restored, would have no
motive for the destruction of property, or of
life; but would at once become interested in
the preservation of the public peace. As a
general rule, they would remain in their present homes, and among the associates of their
childhood, a free peasantry, cultivating their na
tive fields, as hired laborers. Some few would
purchase small farms for themselves. Gradually others would follow their example. The
poor whites, incited by this change, and able to
hire laborers, while they have been utterly un able to buy them, would see a new world of
hope opening before them. Soon our whole
Southern country would exhibit the aspect of
cheerful and happy industry, which enlivens
and blesses the North.  The poor whites, now
so debased, would rise to the position of pro prietors, with hired servants, directed by their
energies; the energies of a race now, doubtless,
notwithstanding their debasement, superior to
the colored race.
10* 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
The colored man, inspired by the spirit of
liberty, would develop new resources of body
and of mind. His home would become attractive. His children, neatly dressed, would
be gathered into Sabbath-school.  The church
bell would send its echoes over mountain and
flowery savanna; and those sanctuaries of God,
without which there can not exist an intelligent,
virtuous, and industrious people, would diffuse
their inestimable blessings over a rejoicing land.
May God hasten the advent of this happy day.
The man who, with a right spirit, prays and
labors for this is neither a fanatic, nor an incendiary, nor an enemy of the South. Sure I am,
that there are thousands of Southern wives and
mothers whose hearts yearn for this blessing.
226 
CHAPTER XI.
" THE IMPERTINENT INTERMEDDLING OF THE
NORTH."
Tudesclay, Dec. 20.-I have passed as cheerless
a night in the cars as I remember ever to have
experienced. It has been dark and rainy. At
midnight we reached Wilmington in NorthCarolina, two hundred and ninety miles from
Augusta, Georgia. Crossing Cape Fear River
in a boat, we took another train of cars for
Petersburg, Virginia. But an accident befell
our engine: we lost our right of way; and at
six o'clock in the morning found that we had
passed over but twenty-six miles.
I was much interested, during the night, in a
gang of about one hundred young men, slaves,
packed in the negro cars, who had been taken 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
from Virginia, as I was informed, down to
South- Carolina, to work upon a railroad.
Some said that they had finished their work,
and were being transported back again to their
Virginia masters, of whom they had been hired.
Others said that, through the considerate kindness of their owners and employers, they were
returning home on a visit, that they might
enjoy, with their friends, the Christmas holidays. I have received the impression, during
my tour, that there is much of this kindness
at the South. It was pleasant to observe that
every body seemed interested in these poor
slaves, and that they were always addressed
kindly.
But is my eye evil, because, to me, this was
a sad, sad spectacle? These poor young men
have been absent from their homes, if a "nigger-cabin" can be called a home, perhaps six
months or a year. All this time they have
been hard at work, and yet their masters have
received every dollar of their wages. Each
man had a bundle upon his back, containing
228 
IMPERTINENT INTERMEDDLING.
apparently a blanket and a lot of old shoes and
clothes, tied up in a dirty sheet. In this compass was to be found all his earthly possessions;
and even this was not his own.  Perhaps some
of them had children at home, but the poor
father could carry the child no present, and
least of all could he take to the little one a book
to read. During all his absence he could receive no letter from home, and he could write
none. And this is called kind treatment of our
fellow-man! And we find men in the free
North who will say that this system is "just,
wise, and beneficent," and that the slave is in
a better condition than the free laborer at the
North! Young farmers and mechanics of the
free States, with your purses, your homes,
your education, your books, your newspapers,
your lectures, your churches, and your free dom to seek and achieve your fortunes in any
quarter of the globe, what say you to this senti ment? Are you willing to exchange places
with some poor creature in this "gang"?
There were several overseers in charge of the
229 
SOUTIH AND NORTTH.
party. Most of the slaves were young men
between eighteen and twenty-five. They were
all comfortably clad in that coarse but warm
and serviceable cloth, called "negro cloth."
Some of the young men seemed reckless and
a little merry, but I saw no indications of any
thing like joyousness. The general aspect of
the group was that of silence, patience, and
weariness. Some countenances expressed positive sadness, and some few looked sullen and
morose. But the general aspect was that of
stolid indifference or hopelessness.
As I gazed upon this group, so melancholy
in my contemplation, and reflected upon the
unrefined, unintellectual, coarse, brutal life to
which we doom them, I felt personally humiliated by the thought that we, a proud, powerful,
intelligent, and professedly Christian people,
should wield all the powers of our government
to rivet their chains, and to darken their minds,
and to check every effort these defrauded children of God may make for self-culture. And I
blush for human nature, when I read the
230 
IMPERTINENT INTERMEDDLING.
speeches of our Union-saving statesmen, so
called, to find that, instead of urging the oppressor to break the heavy yoke, and thus to
unite and save our land, they urge, with all the
power of rhetoric, the Christian and the philanthropist, no longer to express any sympathy for
the oppressed. Gentlemen, we can not heed
your cry. We must, even if we perish at the
stake for it, "Remember those that are in bonds
as bound with them."
We, who plead the cause of the oppressed,
enroll ourselves under the banner of Washington and Jefferson, Jay and Franklin.  They have
transmitted to us our watchwords. Speaking
of this evil of slavery, Washington says:
"I can only say that there is not a man
living who wishes more sincerely than I do to
see the abolition of it."*
Hiow earnest and emphatic the expression,
"there is not a man living." Mark also the
phrase, the "abolition" of it. Washington does
* Letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786.
231 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
not ask merely for the restriction of slavery,
merely for the melioration of its evils, but for
" the abolition of it."  He is for abolition.  Ile
is an abolitionist.
"There  is," Washington  continues, "only
one proper and effectual plan by which it can
be  accomplished,  and  that  is by legislative
authority; and the, as far as my suffrage will go,
shall never be wanting."*
This is exactly what we desire.  We wish
you, gentlemen of the South, in your legislative
assemblies to enact laws which shall substitute
paid for slave-labor. We know that you can
do this if you are only willing to do so. We
know that it can be done with perfect safety;
that it will be promotive of your own benefit,
and of the welfare of our whole country.  We
feel that the power is with you entirely; and
that all that we  can do is to try to persuade
you to exercise that power. As members of
the human  family, as fellow-countrymen, in
* The same.
232 
IMPERTINENT INTERMIEDDLING.
volved with you in the prosperity or the ruin
of this great nation, we entreat you to do this,
and thus to bring yourselves into harmony
with the North and with the rest of Christendom.
Our Southern friends are so much in the
habit of thinking of nothing but Cotton, that
they are under the most extraordinary delusion
in respect to its comparative value. As Cotton
is their only child, it is not surprising that it
should be regarded with undue partiality.
With them there is the constant iteration
of the old cry, " There's nothing like leather."
This infatuation is too deeply rooted to be
easily removed; and there are some apologies
to be made for it, since the cotton-crop is, in
reality, a very important one. By our last
census it amounted, for the year 1850, to
$78,264,628. This is more than half as much
as the whole hay-crop of the North amounted
to that year, which was $142,138,998. It is
nearly three quarters as much as the Northern
wheat-crop, which  was  $108,236,229.  It is
233 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
more than half as much as the Indian corn
crop of the North, which amounted to $145,571,190.
Indeed the cotton-crop is a very important
crop, so important that it deserves to be encouraged and prosecuted with new vigor.
Free labor would speedily double the product,
and add vastly to its importance as an element
of national wealth. But my Southern friends
must pardon me if I intimate to them-for,
under the circumstances, it is my duty to do
so-that in their talk about cotton they often remind us of the Chinese. I recently saw a map
of China, in which the " Celestial Empire"
composed nearly the whole of the globe. Far
off in one corner there was a little dot, which
represented the benighted island, where a few
outside barbarians, called the English, lingered
away a miserable existence. Still farther off
there was another savage island where the barbaric Americans groped through their lives, in
glooms, which no rays from the celestial empire
ever irradiated.
234: 
IMPERTINENT INTERMEDDLING.
Our Southern friends are deceived, ludicrously deceived, when they fancy that cotton is the
mainspring of the world's mechanism; that cotton is the throbbing heart which impels the tide
of life and energy to the remotest extremities
of the body politic. England was a very respectable nation, even before the cotton-gin was
invented. France, and Austria, and Spain, and
Prussia were great powers, even when there
were no " niggers" growing cotton in Georgia.
Should all the slave States suddenly slide down
into the Gulf, there would still be twenty-five
millions of people in the free States, whom that
calamity would not annihilate; who would still
contrive to eat and drink, build houses, take
merry sleigh-rides, and marry, and be given in
marriage.
The Southern delusion with regard to the
sovereignty of cotton is so extraordinary, that
we are continually meeting it in utterances
which have never been surpassed by Esqui maux or Chinaman.  A  Southern Representa  tive in Congress, only this last week, stated in
235 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
the Hiall of our National Legislature, that the
cotton-crop of Georgia alone, for any one year,
was sufficient to buy up the whole State of
Pennsylvania!
Why, the products of the mining and mechanic arts alone, in the single State of Pennsylvania, in the year 1850, according to our
last census, amounted to twice as much as the
whole cotton-crop of all the slave States in  the
Uiion put together. Here are the figures:
Products of mines and mechanic arts in Penn sylvania, for 1850, -..         $155,044,910
Cotton-crop of all the Slave States,    -   -  78,264,928
Balance in favor of Pennsylvania, -   -$76,779,982
Indeed, all the staple agricultural products,
of all the slave States, including cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, hemp and sugar, amounted, for
the year 1850, to but $138,605,723. Thus, the
single State of Pennsylvania, from the annual
products of her mines and manufactures alone,
could buy up the whole cotton-crop of all the
Southern States, together with all their other
staple agricultural products, and yet have the
pretty little sum of more than $16,000,000 left
236 
IMPERTINENT INTERMEDDLING.
in her purse. And, yet a Southern Member
of Congress actually thinks that Pennsylvania
is a poor, outside barbarian, whose very existence is dependent upon the cotton raised by
Southern  "niggers."
Pennsylvania can show property to the
amount of $729,144,998.  She could buy up
to-day, all the cities, villages, railroads, cabins,
planters'  houses,  lands  and'"niggers"  of
Georgia, and still have a well-invested capital, amounting to $393,719,284. With this
surplus capital, she could buy up still another
State like Georgia, "niggers" and all, and then
have $58,293,570 left in her purse. Here are
the figures:
Real and personal property of Pennsylvania,
in 1850,-.   -  -          ----   $729,144,998
Real and personal property of Georgia, in eluding slaves,     -   -   -   -   -  335,425,714
It is of no use to get angry with the multiplication table, or with Euclid's problems. Here
are the facts. Wise men will ponder them.
They will inquire into the cause of this amazing difference between two sister States.   Is
237
I — -- 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
Pennsylvania  larger  than  Georgia?    No I
IIas she a more genial climate?   No!  Better
soil?   No!  What  makes  the  difference?
One is blest with free labor, and the other is cursed
with slave labor! That is all.
We are singing a great song of liberty: we,
a choir of thirty millions. You, a little band of
slaveholders, have come in with the discordant
strains of slavery. We ask you to sing in harmony with us. But you refuse, and insist that
we shall change our concert-pitch, and strike
up a strain which we do not know, can never
learn, and absolutely abhor.  And you threaten
that if we, the millions, do not obey you, the
thousands, you will leave the orchestra and
break up the choir. Gentlemen! do you really
think that we shall yield!
It will not be a creditable story, in this age,
to go out to the world, that the Southern States
of the American Republic abandoned the Confederacy, because the Northern States would
not help them compel their servants to work
without wages. Men, thus dishonoring them
238 
IMPERTINENT INTERMEDDLING.
selves, will not find a welcome at any table,
where gentlemen do congregate, in Christendom.
But, our Southern friends ask, "What is it
to you, at the North, whether we pay our
servants or not? We have a right to do what
we will with our own. We deny that we ask
any help of you in the management of our
servants. We can take care of them ourselves.
All we ask of you is that you will let us alone,
and not impertinently meddle with that which
is no concern of yours."
Have I put it fairly? Now will you listen
to my reply I Here is a fugitive slave, rushing
across the frontier, panting, bleeding, exhausted.
The baying bloodhounds are on his track, and
the shouts of men are heard closely following,
with their guns shotted and primed, hounding
on the dogs.
You shout to us, in our free fields and cities,
to help your bloodhounds catch the fugitive.
The man has committed no crime.  He seeks
only liberty. He is fleeing only from oppres
239 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
sion, such oppression as we would not endure
for an hour. Imperiously you shout to us to
join your bloodhounds in the pursuit. You
call upon Cincinnati and Philadelphia and
Worcester and Boston to change themselves
into dogs to help you catch your negroes!
Gentlemen! is this what you call "asking
no help of us"? Is this what you mean, when
you say: "All that we ask of you is, that you
will let us alone, and not impertinently intermeddle with that which is no concern of
yours"?
When we hesitate to clutch the poor fugitive, and to join with the dogs in dragging him
down; when we find our sympathies instinctively arising against the bloodhounds, and in
favor of the man, you point us to a cautiously
worded phrase in the Constitution, about "persons held to service," and aver, that by that
clause we are bound to help your dogs; that
it is one of the solemn compromises of the
Constitution that we shall "help you" catch
your slaves, and rivet again upon their wrists
240 
IMPERTINENT INTERMEDDLING.
the broken  manacles,  and  send them  back
again to eternal bondage.  And whlen, in the
anguish of our hearts, we declare that we do
not see how we can perpetrate this great crime
-that to our enlightened consciences, it does
seem the very meanest and wickedest thing a
man can do, you tell us in the harshest tones
of Saxon utterance, that we are Fanatics, and
Incendiaries, and Traitors.
Many a pang of anguish was felt a few years
ago in the city of Boston, and the whole State
of Massachusetts blushed crimson with shame,
when poor Burns, a helpless, innocent, Christian man, whose only crime was, that he loved
liberty, was seized by the whole military power
of the city, and, guarded by battalions of
infantry, cavalry and artillery, was dragged
back again to bondage. There is an amount
of oppression which  will drive a wise man
mad. Boston narrowly escaped that doom.
At many a family altar that night, tears flowed
freely, and voices, inarticulate with emotion,
breathed agonizing prayers.
1
241 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
It was, indeed, a dreadful spectacle! Those
who beheld will not forget it till their dying
day. As poor Burns was borne along in that
sad, funeral procession, almost beneath the
shadow of the monument on Bunker's hill,
tears dropped from his eyes, bedewing the soil
which our fathers crimsoned with their blood,
in support of the principle that: "All men are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness."
And now, will you, brethren of the South,
still ask: "What has the North to do with
Slavery?  Will you denounce us as impertinent intermeddlers, because we entreat you to
substitute free labor for slave labor, and thus
give peace to our country, and save us from
this shame and woe?
You can not compel men to work without
wages, unless you keep them in the most profound ignorance. They must neither be permitted to read nor to write. They must learn
no philosophy, no science. The Bible above
242 
IMPERTINENT INTERMEDDLING.
all things must be excluded from their minds.
The slave must be kept down in the dungeons
of mental gloom, far from the light of day.
Samson's eyes must be plucked out before
he can be forced to grind in the mill of the
Philistines. Now we are one nation. The
Constitutional provision to which you so often
refer us, implicates us all alike in the institution of Slavery. AVe feel degraded in our own
eyes, and know that we are degraded in the
eyes of the Whole civilized world, by trying to
keep four millions of people in the condition
of brutes. The voice of nature and of inspiration alike declares, that every man  should
make  the most of himself,  developing  and
ennobling all the powers which God has conferred upon him.
Suppose that every colored child, as soon as
born, were taken into the arms of its " owner,"
and a red-hot needle thrust into its eyes, that it
might be blinded forever.  That is just what
we do to the eyes of the mind of more than four
millions of people.  Not you, but we, for we
243 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
have entered into a partnership with you in
this thing. I can not conceive of a more awful
crime than this. And this crime we must continue to perpetrate, if we are determined never
to pay these people wages. We must blind
them. Then they are helpless and groping;
can neither resist nor strike. May I not, then,
brethren, plead with you to adopt the system,
that the "laborer is worty of his hire," a system which all the rest of enlightened Christendom has adopted; a system which renders this
blinding process no longer necessary? Ought
you not to be willing to make so slight a sacrifice as this, for the peace of your country? If
not, can you dream that thirty millions of people will pass over to your views; when, should
they do so, all the rest of the civilized world
would cry shame! shame! shame!
244 
CHAPTER XII.
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION -A NORTHERN VIEW.
WE hear much, from our Southern friends,
respecting the aggression of the North upon
their rights. Let me exhibit this subject of
agogression as it presents itself to the eye from
my point of view.
1. The effort at the South, to compel their
servants to work without wages, throws obstructions into our paths at the North, in
almost whatever direction we may attempt to
move. The slaveholder demands permission to
bring his slaves into our States, and hold them
there, as a visitor, so long as it may be convenient for him to do so.  And he commands
us so to amend and frame our laws, as to enable
him to grasp his slave firmly, and extort from 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
him unpaid labor.  So far as he is concerned,
he demands permission to bring into our States
the slave code of the slave States, a code utterly abhorrent to all our feelings and principles,
and which is in antagonism with the whole
spirit of our laws. And because we refuse to
do that which a man would be insane to demand of England or of France, we are denounced in the severest terms language can
afford.
2. If a Northern gentleman wishes to journey
South, with a colored servant, to whom he pays
wages, you seize that servant, and throw him
into jail and keep him there until his employer
leaves the State. If we send a ship to the South,
and have in our employ a colored sailor, or
cook, you seize that man, drag him from our
service, and shut him up in prison, until our
ship weighs anchor and departs. Thus you
claim the privilege of carrying your institution
of Slavery to the North, but refuse us the right
of carrying our institution of freedom to the
South. And hov inglorious the reason you as
246 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
sign.  "If the Southern slaves," you say, "see
that Northern servants are paid for their work,
they will be discontented in working without
wages, and will want pay also!"
3. Annoyed by having our hired servants
thus torn from us, and thrust into jail, Massachusetts sends one'of her most distinguished
citizens, the Ilon. Mr. Hoar, as an ambassador
to the State of South-Carolina, to inquire, in a
friendly spirit, if an evil of such magnitude
may not, in some way, be redressed. iHe goes as
a man of peace, with  no  retinue,  with  no
menace; an unarmed ambassador, accompanied
by his daughter.
Instantly this ambassador,  with  barbarity
almost unparalleled in the annals of nations, is
met with the grossest insults.  A  mob of gentlemen, of property and standing, leading on
the "poor whites," surround him with hootings
and yellings.  Hie is threatened with tar and
feathers, and only saves himself from the horrors of lynch law by a precipitate escape.
There is not a nation in Europe which would
247 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
not regard such an outrage as an occasion for
war.
4. And now comes another struggle. You
avow a new principle, which, in language not
very classical, you call "Squatter Sovereignty;"
that is, that the emigrants who first enter a
territory shall decide, by a majority of votes,
what institutions they will have, whether those
of freedom or Slavery.   Kansas is now  the
prize to be struggled for. The Missouri Compromise made it ours. To introduce this principle you repeal the Missouri Compromise.
We are thus defrauded of Kansas, and must
try to win it again by the energies of emigration.  As slaveholding Missouri was the only
State in the Union which bordered this territory, you affirmed, and we feared, that you could
easily pour in such  a tide of emigration as
would doom these wide realms to Slavery; and
that then you would sweep, with the disastrous
flood of unpaid labor, the whole free territory
to the Pacific.
5. And now came another act in this strange
248 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
drama, in this conflict so truly "irrepressible."
The free States, roused by the great firaud of
which they had been the victims, sent their sons
and daughters, in multitudinous troops, from
all the hills and valleys of the North and the
West, to rescue, by the peaceful energies of the
ballot-box, these lands from their impending
doom. Slavery, also aroused, pealed forth her
cry,  and  from  Missouri,   South-Carolina,
Georgia and all the South, hosts were mustered to hasten to the arena, where you had declared, gentlemen, notwithstanding all our remonstrances, that the land we once had purchased by compromise, should no longer be
ours, but should again be contended for in the
strife of emigration.
6. And now occurred, in this dark and
stormy tragedy, perhaps the most atrocious
scene of outrage ever witnessed in a civilized
land.   It was soon evident that the sons of
freedom were outnumbering the champions of
Slavery. The appointed day was at hand for
the inhabitants of the territory, the advocates
11*
249 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
of Slavery and the friends of freedom, to meet
at the polls, and, by a majority vote, decide
whether freedom or Slavery should be the law
of the land, and organize the government accordingly. There could be no doubt as to the
result. Freedom outnumbered Slavery two to
one.
In this crisis, Slavery rallied her legions,
wild and savage men, from the dregs of the
populace of Missouri, inflamed them with
whisky, armed them with rifles, bowie-knives,
bludgeons, and revolvers, and marched them
across the borders of Missouri into the Territory of Kansas. These men, under the guidance of a slaveholder, a former Vice-President
of the United States, took possession of the
polls, overpowered and drove away the friends
of freedom, deposited their own ballots in any
number they chose, went through the farce of
counting them; and then announced that, by
an overwhelming majority of votes, Slavery was
declared to be the law of the land.
They then organized the government by
250 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
electing a Legislature of slaveholders, who were
to frame laws in accordance with these proceeding,s. To protect this Legislature from the indignation of an outraged people, this armed
mob convened them in a small town near the
borders of Missouri, where the "border ruffians" of that State could guide their movements, and watch over them. This Legislature
met, and enacted a code of laws, which would
have disgraced a tribe of savages. They put
the strongest prohibition upon freedom of
speech, and the press; dooming any one to
death who should venture to write or speak a
word against Slavery, or in behalf of liberty.
This armed invasion from Missouri was estimated to consist of from five to seven thousand
men. As they were preparing for their march,
one of their leaders thus addressed them:
"To those who have qualms of conscience
as to violating laws, State or national, the time
has come when such impositions must be dis reg,arded, as your rights and property are in
danger.   I advise you one and all to enter
251 
SOUTHl AND NORTH.
every election district in Kansas, and vote at
the point of the bowie-knife and revolver.
Neither give nor take quarter, as our case demands it. It is enough that the slaveholding
interest wills it, from which there is no appeal."
The march of these invaders resembled the
movements of an army. They went with artillery, and tents, and mounted horsemen;
with bands of martial music, and banners, and
wagons of ammunition.  They moved so strong
in numbers that all resistance in the infant territory was unavailing; and thus  Kansas was
conquered and subjugated by the slave power,
and all the most sacred rights of American free
men were trampled in the dust.
The army returned in triumph to Missouri,
and entered the city of Independence. The
Squatter Sovereign, a newspaper published in
that region, devoted to the slaveholding interests, thus describes the scene of their return.
"They were preceded by the Westport and
Independence brass bands. They came in at
252 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
the west side of the public square, and proceeded entirely around it, cheering us with fine
music and good news. Immediately following
the bands were about two hundred horsemen,
in regular order. Following these were one
hundred and fifty wagons and carriages. They
report that not a single anti-slavery man will be in
the Legislature of EKansas. We have made a
clean sweep."
7. And now comes another view, if possible
still more revolting, in this panorama of "aggression."   The  Free-State  men of Kansas,
composing a vast majority of the population,
resolved that they would not submit to such
outrages, and that they would not recognize as
law the exactions of this Legislature, thus
created. They met in convention, and passed
the following resolution:
"-Resolved, That the body of men who, for
the last two months, have been passing laws for
the people of our territory, moved, counseled,
and dictated to by the demagogues of Missouri,
are to us a foreign body, representing only the
253 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
lawless invaders who elected them, and not the
people of the territory; that we repudiate their
action as the monstrous consummation of an act
of violence, usurpation, and fraud, unparalleled
in the history of the Union."
"You shall obey our Legislature," shouted
the voice of Slavery. They rang the tocsin,
summoned their hosts, and again, in battle array, invaded the territory with threats of fire
and blood. From all parts of the South,
armed bands marched to swell the numbers, and
increase the terror of this invading host. The
Free-State men grasped their arms, and from all
parts of the North aid was sent to our sons,
brothers, and friends, who had emigrated to
Kansas, in their struggle for their rights.
While matters were in this state, the President of the United States, in reply to a prayer
from the people of Kansas for his protection,
issued a proclamation, declaring that the Legislature created by the border ruffians of Missouri, was to be recognized as the legitimate
Legislature of Kansas, and that its laws were to
204 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
be binding upon the people.  At the same
time he dispatched officers to Kansas, empowering them to employ the whole strength of the
governmental arm of the United States, in
forcing upon the people of Kansas, the laws
enacted by a Legislature created by a Missouri
mob.
By this act of the United States in adopting
these laws, any one who opposed them could
be arraigned for treason against the United
States. And in our National Senate, these
men, who were defending their dearest rights,
and who would have merited the scorn of the
world, had they succumbed to such oppression,
were stigmatized as "rioters and rebels." Encouraged by this support, the Missouri ruffian
Legislature, passed an act declaring that no
man should be permitted to vote in Kansas,
who would not first take an oath that he
approved of the most obnoxious acts of this
ruffian  Legislature.  And, thlat they  might
obtain as many votes as they pleased from Missouri, they passed another act declaring that
255 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
any man might vote, taking this oath, who
would pay a tax of one dollar, and who would
declare that at that hour he resided in Kansas.
Gentlemen of the South, how can you say
one word about John Brown I A poor halfcrazed, fanatical old man, with a single score
of followers, black and white, stole by night
into the State of Virginia, and tried to run off a
few slaves. The scheme, in all its aspects, was
as wild as monomaniac ever attempted. The
poor old man was taken and hung for his
crime. The North, with perfect ease, could
have sent an army of one hundred thousand
men for his rescue. But the North did not lift
a finger. Almost universally it condemned the
act as a crime, and acquiesced in the punishment. But any development of heroism and
sincerity and entire unselfishness we can not
but admire. No one can doubt that John
Brown, though he was doing wrong, thought
that he was doing right. Not a pang of compunction visited his soul. Hie ascended the
scaffold as serenely as ever martyr was led to
256 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSO10N.
the stake.  His unselfishness and his heroism
we appreciate as noble, while his act we condemn. You, surely, are capable of understanding that distinction.  And  yet the world has
been deafened with the clamor you have raised,
about the crazy attempt of  poor old John
Brown, while all the unutterable outrages perpetrated by Slavery in Kansas, you do not
seem to think even require an apology.
O wad some power thegiftie gie us,
To see oursel's as others see us;
It wad frae monie a blunder frae us,
And foolish notion;
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n Devotion.
8. But we must still pass on, contemplating
picture after picture in thlis career of crime.
The friends of freedom in Washington, to rescue the territory of Kansas from civil war,
introduced a bill into the Senate, through the
Hon. Wmin. 11. Seward, providing for the immediate admission of Kansas into the Union, as a
257 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
free State, in accordance with the known wish
of an overwhelming majority of its inhabitants.
The HIon. Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, made a speech in advocacy of this
measure; a speech in which he told the tale
of Kansas outrage, in terms of fidelity, which
caused the ear of Slavery to tingle. There was
not one word in this speech transcending the
allowed limits of Parliamentary debate. The
proof of this is indubitable; for no one called
him to order. " t was a speech," says a venerable statesman, " exceeding not one hair's
breadth any line of truth or duty."
Slavery exasperated, and emboldened by
having crushed freedom of speech and of the
press in Kansas, determined also to palsy every
free tongue in the Senate of the United States.
The arguments of the Massachusetts Senator
could not be refuted. iHe must be silenced
with the bludgeon.
The Hion. Preston S. Brooks, a member of
the iouse of Representatives from South-Carolina, armed with a revolver and a bludgeon,
258 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
and accompanied by a confederate, that there
might be two to one, should the Senator prove
successful in resistance, stole into the Senate
Chamber, where their victim, all unsuspicious
of danger, was calmly writing at his desk, his
limbs being so entangled beneath the desk that
he could not easily rise. Mr. Brooks, a man
of more than six feet in stature, and of powerftul sinews, cautiously drew near, and with a
gutta-percha bludgeon, so tough and heavy that
it truly might be called an instrument of death,
dealt blow after blow, with all the energy of
his herculean arm, upon the brow of the Senator.
Taken all at unawares, and stunned by this
fearful, brutal onslaught, Mr. Sumner in vain
attempted to rise. But the assailant, as with a
frenzied arm, dealt, without an instant's intermission, these crushing, lacerating, mangling
blows, until the scalp was peeled from the bone;
the brain was paralyzed, and the blood, gushing from his wounds, saturated his clothes, and
dripped in pools upon the floor, and the Senator
dropped, senseless and apparently lifeless, from
his seat.
259 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
The Hon. Edwin D. Morgan, of New-York,
who chanced to be in the Senate Chamber at
this time, gives the following description of
this scene:
"It was by the merest accident I was present
in the great slaughter-house of Washington.
Business called me there, and while I was in
conversation with one of the representatives of
the press from New-York, I heard the first and
second blows upon  Senator  Sumner's head.
Instantly my friend and myself pressed forward
towards the scene of conflict. It was the impulse of our nature, of every true man's nature,
and no credit is due to us; because there is no
man who would not have done the same. I
saw, from the instant that I started from the
opposite side of the Senate Chamber, that these
blows were given on a defenseless man. These
blows were given with all the power that a
man six feet three inches high could inflict on
a man seated at his desk, without the capability
of rising.
"During the brief time that I was passing
260 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
from one end of the Senate Chamber to the
other, fifteen or twenty blows were given with
as much rapidity as the cane could descend in
the hand of an active and powerful man.  My
friend, his name  was  Murray,  caught  the
villain, Brooks, by the arm.  Almost  at the
same instant my good fortune brought me to
place myself between the beaten Senator and
the assassin.  I caught Mr. Sumner and saved
him from actually falling on the floor.  I laid
him on the floor, sustaining him with my arm,
and this coat, which I now wear, was saturated
with his poor blood."
Will it be said that this was but an individual act of violence, and that slavery is not to
be held responsible for it?  There is not an
intelligent man in the United States who will
make any such assertion. Slavery, with almost
a united voice, applauded the deed, appropriated it to herself, and gloried in the shame
as "gallant" and "chivalrous."  Slaveholding
Senators rose in the Senate Chamber, and
awarded praise to the assailant. The people
261 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
of the slaveholding States, met in immense
assemblages, passed resolutions in honor of the
act, invited the perpetrator to triumphal fetes,
and rewarded him with rich services of plate.
His own native State exhausts its ingenuity in
devising honors for Preston S. Brooks. With
all pompous formalities they send him a new
bludgeon, a substitute for the one which he
shivered over the brow of one of the noblest
sons of New-England;  and on that bludgeon
they inscribe the words, " Hit him again!"
Gentlemen of the South, can you, without
a blush, utter one word of complaint about
Northern sympathy for poor John Brown in
his attempt, through a mistaken delusion, to
help the oppressed!
Perhaps some may think it incredible that
the South could have approved of the murderous assault of Preston S. Brooks. It is necessary then to adduce evidence. I do it with
repugnance. The Richmond Whig, of Virginia,
commenting upon this transaction, says:
"It will be seen by telegraph, that Mr.
262 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
Brooks, of South-Carolina, after the adjournment of the Senate, on yesterday, administered
to Senator Sumner, the notorious and foulmouthed abolitionist from Massachusetts, an
effectual  caning.   We  are  rejoiced  at this.
The only regret we feel is, that Mr. Brooks did
not employ a horse-whip or a cowhide upon his
slanderous back, instead of a cane. We trust
that the ball may be kept in motion. Seward
and others should catch it next."
The South-Side Dnemocrat, of Virginia, says:
"The telegraph has recently announced no
information more grateful to our feelings than
the classical caning which this outrageous abolitionist received on Thursday, at the hands of
the chivalrous Brooks, of South-Carolina."
The Petersburg Intelligencer, Virginia, says:
"We are exceedingly sorry that Mr. Brooks
dirtied his cane by laying it across the shoulders
of the blackguard Sumner. We regret that he
did so, not because Sumner got a lick amiss,
not because he was not entitled to all he got
and more besides, but because the nasty scamp
263 
SOUTH  AND NORTH.
and his co-scamps will make capital for their
foul cause out of the affair.  They will raise a
howl, which will split the public ear, about the
violation of the privileges of debate, Southern
bullyism, etc.
"Disagreeing with the Richmond Whig as to
the effect of Sumner's thrashing, we entirely
concur with it, that if thrashing is the only
remedy by which the foul conduct of the abQlitionists can be controlled, that it will be well
to give Seward a double dose, at least, every
other day, until it operates freely on his political bowels."
These passages are alike revolting to taste,
decency, and morals. It is with extreme reluctance that I transcribe them on these pages.
But the festering wound, periling our national
life, must be probed.
The Columbia Times, published in the capital
of South-Carolina, says: "We  were not mistaken in asserting, on Saturday last, that Ilon.
Preston S. Brooks has not only the approval,
but the hearty congratulations of the people of
264 
SOUTHIERN AGGRESSION.
South-Carolina, for his summary chastisement
of Senator Sumner. Immediately upon the
reception of the news, a most enthusiastic
meeting was convened in the town of Newberry. The meeting voted him a handsome
gold-headed cane.
' Here in Columbia a handsome sum, headed
by the Governor of the State, has been subscribed
for the purpose of presenting MAr. Brooks with
a splendid silver pitcher, goblet, and stick,
which will be conveyed to him in a few days
by gentlemen delegated for that purpose. In
Charleston, similar testimonies have been ordered by the friends of Mr. Brooks.
"We heard one of Carolina's truest and most
honored matrons, from AIr. Brooks' district,
say, that the ladies of the South would send
him hickory sticks with which to chastise abolitionists and black-republicans, whenever he
wanted them. M{eetings of approval and sanction will be held, not only in Mr. Brooks'
district, but throughout the State at large; and
a general and a friendly response of approval
12
265 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
will echo the words,' Well done!' from Washington to the Rio Grande."
It is always painful to enter into the diagnosis of a malignant disease. But this is generally necessary in the attempt to effect a cure.
I must therefore continue, a little further, this
exhibition, revolting as it is. The Richmond
Enquirer, Virginia, says:
"A few Southern Journals, affecting an exclusive refinement of feeling, or regard for the
proprieties of official intercourse, unite with the
abolition papers in condemning the chastisement inflicted upon Sumner by the Hon. P.S.
Brooks. We have no patience with these
mealy-mouthed Pharisees of the Press.
"In the main, the Press of the South applauds the conduct of Mr. Brooks, without
condition or limitation. Our approbation, at
least, is entire and unreserved. We consider
the act good in conception, better in execution,
and best of all in consequence. These vulgar
abolitionists in the Senate, are getting above
themselves. They have grown saucy, and dare
266 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
to be impudent to gentlemen. Now they are a
low, mean, scurvy set, with some little booklearning, but as utterly devoid of spirit and
honor, as a pack of curs.  Intrenched behind
'privilege,' they fancy they can slander the
South and its representatives with impunity.
"The truth is, they have been suffered to run
too long without collars. They must be lashed
into submission. Sumner, in particular, ought
to have nine and thirty every morning. He
is a great strapping fellow, and could stand the
cowhide beautifully. There is the blackguard
Wilson*, an ignorant Natick cobbler, swaggering in excess of muscle, and absolutely dying
for a beating. Will not some body take him
in hand? Hialet is another huge, red-faced,
sweating  scoundrel, whom  some  gentleman
should kick and cuff until he abates something
of his impudent talk. Let them once understand, that for every vile word spoken against
* The Hon. Henry Wilson, who represents Massachusetts
in the Senate of the United States.
The Hon. John P. Hale, Senator from New-Hampshire.
267 
SOUTI-I AND NORTH.
the South, they will suffer so many stripes, and
they will soon learn to behave themselves like
decent dogs-they never can be gentlemen.
"Mr. Brooks has initiated this salutary discipline, and he deserves applause for the bold,
judicious manner in which he chastised the
scamp Sumner. It was a proper act, done at
the proper time, and in the proper place. It is
idle to talk of the sanctity of the Senate Chamber, since it is polluted by the presence of such
fellows as Wilson and Sumner and Wade.*
We trust that other gentlemen will follow the
example of Mr. Brooks, that so a curb may be
imposed upon the truculence and audacity of
abolition speakers. If need be, let us have a
caning or a cowhiding every day."
These extracts prove, beyond all controversy, that the outrage upon Senator Sumner,
is not to be regarded as the act of an individual, but as the measure which Slavery, with
singular unanimity, has adopted to crush free
* The Hon. Mr. Wade, Senator from Ohio.
268 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
dom of speech in the Congress of the United
States.
Slavery, vanquished in debate, makes her
appeal to the bludgeon, to silence the voice of
truth!  And what were the particular words
in Mr. Sumner's speech, which aroused such
brutality? Fortunately we know exactly what
they were.
The Hion. E. A. Edmundson, representative
in CongTess, from South-Carolina, with whom,
as a friend, Mr. Brooks conferred previous to
the assault, testifies on oath, before a committee
appointed by Congress to investigate this matter, that the particular words to which Mr.
Brooks took exception, and to avenge which he
made the assault, were the following:
"Pray, sir, by what title does he indulge in
this egotism? Has he read the history of the
State which he represents? Hie can not, surely, have forgotten its shameful imbecility from
Slavery, during the Revolution, followed by its
more shameful assumptions for Slavery, since."
It is thus that the question has assumed an
~:AlI.,
a  ~    lee     
269 
SOUTHI AND NORTIH.
aspect, which arouses and alarms the whole
North. In order that you may compel your
servants to work without wages, you must
1. Keep them in the most brutal ignorance.
2. You must enslave all the free colored peo
ple in your borders.
3. You must prevent the non-slaveholding
whites in your States, from reading any books
or newspapers, from hearing any lectures or
sermons, which show them how Slavery
dooms them to degradation.
4. You must seize our colored servants, to
whom we pay wages, when we are traveling in
your States, and thrust them into jail.
5. You must call upon us to help you chase
your slaves when they run away.
6. You must insist that Slavery shall be established, by authority of Congress in all the
free territory of the United States; and that, in
defiance of our laws, you may hold your slaves
in our States, bringing the code of Slavery into
the States of freedom.
7. You must demand that the North shall
e -,...
270 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
not, in the pulpit or the press, utter one word
against Slavery, lest it should excite discontent
among the "poor whites," almost equally degraded with  the enslaved "blacks" of the
South.
8. You must stand on the floor of the Senate
Chamber, and Hiall of Representatives of the
United States, with bowie-knife, revolver and
bludgeon, and try to overawe the advocates of
freedom into silence, and into acquiescence, with
all your demands.
Nay, brethren! you do even more than all
this; you
9. Offer rewards for the heads of our most
honored and valuable citizens, both statesmen
and clergymen. Men whom all the world
delight to honor, can not enter your States
without exposure to the most atrocious insults
and the most abusive deaths, simply because
they are opposed to Slavery.
10. And, finally, you drive out of the South,
by all the horrors of "lynch-law," every man
who will not vote for the slaveholding candi
271 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
date for the Presidency. You overawe the
timid among you, so that they dare not open
their lips; and then you, having expelled or
silenced all the non-slaveholders among you,
who sympathize with freedom, you, brethren
of the South, numbering but six millions of
citizens, all told, command us, your brethren
of the North, numbering thirteen millions of
citizens, to choose the President you nominate,
and place the Government of the United States
into your hands, or you threaten to leave the
Union.
Now, gentlemen, I ask you, as candid men,
can you expect us, your brethren of the North,
to be very affectionate in our endearments towards you, under these circumstances!  And
can you deceive yourselves into the belief, that
any amount of menace on your part, can now
stay that flood of feeling which is rising at the
North. Much as we love this Union-and we
are willing to do any thing that man  can
honorably do for its preservation-you may
depend upon it, gentlemen, that we shall not
272 
SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.
purchase its continuance, at the expense of
bowing our necks beneath the yoke of Southern Slavery.   You have your subject class
of "poor whites" at the South.  You will not
create that class at the North.  It is well that
you should understand this.  If you doubt my
individual word, inquire of the Legislatures of
the North, of the journalism of the North, of
thle Churchi of the North, and you will receive
but one answer.
12*
273 
CHEAPTER XIII.
SLAVERY: ITS PHILOSOPHY AND ITS FRUITS.
HARDLY any thing can be imagined more
dreary and depressing than a ride through the
State of North-Carolina. I wonder not that
Mr. Helper has raised a cry of indignation and
anguish in view of the ignorance, poverty and
debasement into which the State has fallen.
Straggling,   beggarly  villages,  dilapidated
houses, miserable hovels, fields abandoned to
weeds, degraded negroes, and ragged, pallid,
half-starved-looking whites, fill up the intervals
between long reaches of utter desolation. No
man who has passed through the State, on the
line I traveled, will say that this picture is exaggerated. I do not remember that I saw a
single thrifty-looking home, a single decent 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   275
school-house, or a  single respectable church,
from the time I entered the State until we left
it.  I had no time to explore the cities, where,
of course, there must be indications of wealth
and intelligence; and in the night we may have
passed scenes of industry and beauty. I only
describe the country as it was presented to my
eye.
iHere is a State containing fifty thousand
square miles, being equal in area to all of NewEngland, with the exception of Vermont.  It
enjoys a warm, sunny, salubrious clime; has
its mountains and its meadows; is well watered
by beautiful rivers, gliding through fertile
valleys. Its soil is adapted to the culture of
almost every thing the inhabitants could wish
to raise; it abounds in valuable forests, and in
mineral ores, and ought to be the home of one
of the most intelligent and prosperous people
on the globe. Though thus highly favored by
nature, and though one of the first settled States
of the Union, Slavery has paralyzed all its energies, and it stands by the side of its dilapidated 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
and decaying sister, South-Carolina, at the very
bottom of the scale of American civilization.
The whole white population of this State,
which is six times as large as the State of Massachusetts, consists of but 553,028, being more
than 300,000 less than the population of the
little Bay State, where the songs of freedom
animate to industry. The products of the industrial arts in Massachusetts amount annually
to over 288,000,000; while citizens of NorthCarolina, though aided by 288,548 slaves, can
produce but 9,000,000 annually. The cash value
of the farms, implements, and machinery of
Massachusets, in 1850, was over $112,000,000;
that of North-Carolina, though six times as
large, was less than $72,000,000. The value
of real and personal estate in Massachusetts was
over 593,000,000; that of Northi-Carolina, including the market price of over 288,000 slaves,
was less than 227,000,000, amounting not even
to one half of that of Massachusetts.  In fact
Massachusetts is rich enough to-day, to buy the
whole of North-Carolina, lands, houses, and
276 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   277
"niggers," and then will have enough change
left in her pocket to buy the whole of South
Carolina too. Indeed, according to the census
of 1850, Massachusetts, after purchasing both
of the States of North and South Carolinahouses, lands, "niggers," and all, will still have
over $59,000,000 in her pocket, to commence
paying her emancipated laborers, in advance,
for their work. At least so Mr. De Bow informs us in the census, which, it is to be presumed, is correct.   The tables of the- census
were certainly not framed with any special desire to favor the North.
In Massachusetts, there are not 2000 adults
who can not read and write. In North-Carolina
there are, who can neither read nor write,
1. 288,588 Slaves.
2. 27,463 Free Colored.
3. 80,163 Poor Whites.
396,114. Total who can neither read nor write.
What an appalling fact is this, that, in this
one State of our Union, there are 396,114 people wallowing in this slough of ignorance.  It 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
must be with incredulity that a European receives such an account of one of the States of
"free and enlightened" America.   From such
an appalling swamp of intellectual stagnation
and pollution, the most deadly miasma must
rise, and spread over the whole State.  Massachusetts exported, in 1855, over $28,000,000,
and imported over $45,000,000. North-Carolina, in  the same year, exported less than
$500,000, and imported less than $300,000.
Massachusetts is braided with railroads to the
amount of 1285 miles. North-Carolina, six
times as large, has but 612 miles of railroad.
Massachusetts  has,  in her public  libraries,
684,015 volumes; North- Carolina, 29,592.
The value of the church edifices in Massachusetts, is estimated at over $10,500,000; in
North-Carolina the estimated value is less than
$1,000;000.
..
This strange parallel might be carried still
farther, but this is enough.  Now, why is all
this? The reply is certainly calculated to excite any one's indignation.  There are, in this
278 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   279
State, just 28,303 individual slaveholders.
They have got, in their power, 288,548 of their
fellow-men, who they insist shall work for them
without  wages.   That they may  accomplish
this, the whole of the rest of the State is
doomed to this ignorance, beggary and shame.
That 28,303 slaveholders may extort unpaid
service from their fellow-men, we have the impoverishment and debasement of
288,548 Slaves.
27,463 Free Colored People.
524,724 Non-slaveholders or Poor Whites.
840,735 Total.
Can language exaggerate the magnitude of
such an outrage!   You  can find nothing to
equal this in Austrian or Turkish  despotism.
A whole State is blasted; a population of over
800,000 is reduced to the condition of "niggers," and "poor whites," whom even "niggers" despise, that a little handful of slaveholders, may be exempted from paying wages
to their washerwomen, their boot-blacks,  and
their field-laborers.   And if the slaveholder
1.
2.
3. 
SOUTHI AND NORTH.
persists in this determination, he must persist
in the course he is now pursuing.
1st. HIe must keep his unpaid servants as
ignorant as possible. He must close up every
avenue of knowledge to their minds.  If they
are to be mere chattels, beasts of burden, their
minds must be imbruted. Men who can read,
may get hold of the Declaration of Independ ence - they may,  perchance,  understand  the
significance of Virginia's "fanatical and incendiary" motto, pictorial and classical, a slave
rising into manhood, and exclaiming, as he
crushes his oppressor beneath his heel,  "Sic
semper tyrannis."  This is the doom of tyrants!
It is not safe, if you would enslave your fellowmen, to instruct them.  You must pluck out
their orbs of mental vision. None but blinded
men will submit to such wrongs.
2dly. The free colored people must be kept
in the lowest possible debasement; and if, in
defiance of all your efforts, they will be industrious and thrifty, and become intelligent, you
must reenslave them, and put out their eyes
280 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   281
also, or drive them out of your States. Men
will not contentedly work in your fields without wages, live in "nigger cabins," see their
sons and their daughters reduced to the level
of brutes, for sale like pigs in the market, when
their brethren, free men of color, are earning
for themselves comfortable homes; can educate
their children, and own their own wives, sons,
and daughters, safe from outrage. Mississippi
does wisely, Missouri does wisely, Arkansas
does wisely, in voting the reenslavement of all
the people of color within their borders, if
slavery is to be maintained. Every other slave
State in the IUnion will be compelled to follow
their lead. There are two hundred and twentyeight thousand one hundred and thirty-eight
free colored people in the slave States. Their
doom is inevitable if slavery's hateful voice
prevails, and a deaf ear is turned to the beseechings of freedom. They can not escape.
May God pity them!  Many of these are industrious, Christian men; toiling meritoriously in
the face of all conceivable obstacles. They are 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
to be sold and driven by the lash to the distant plantation. Their wives, their sons, theil
daughters, are also to be transferred beneath
the hammer of the auctioneer, to any man who
has the money to buy them.
3dly. The non-slaveholders, the "poor whites,"
must also be guarded with equal vigilance.
How long could slavery be sustained in NorthCarolina, if the "poor whites" there were permitted to read Mr. Helper's book, a book which
can no more be refuted than the multiplication
table can be reasoned down! The poor whites
must be kept in ignorance of these statistical
facts. There are, already, over eighty thousand
of them who can not read or write a word.
There is another eighty thousand who do not
read or write a word. They have, already,
forgotten the spelling book through which
they once toiled. But there are five hundred
and twenty-four thousand seven hundred and
twenty-four, in all, of these poor, half-starved
whites in North-Carolina, and some of them can
read, and are already looking anxiously at this
282 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.    288
subject, and inquiring if they must continue
forever, to submit to this state of things. If you
are determined to sustain slavery, you must bar
out this light and crush this spirit. You do
wisely in driving out Mr. Helper from your
State! You did wisely in driving Prof. HIedrick
from Chapel Hill. It is, eminently, a sagacious
move, to place your own men in the post-offices,
and command them not to deliver to any "poor
whites" any newspaper, book, or pamphlet
which can throw light upon the blessings of
liberty. The danger is imminent, that these
five hundred and twenty-four thousand seven
hundred and twenty-four poor whites will get
intelligence enough to say, We will no longer
submit to this debasement and penury of our
whole State, simply that twenty-eight thousand
three hundred and three of our fellow-citizens,
may force their servants to work without wages.
You can not be too vigilant. If any man is
found with the New-York Tribune, New-York
Post, or a copy of Helper's book in his hands,
hang him. If any one expresses the opinion 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
that freedom is better than slavery, tar and
feather him. Send your vigilance committee
to the book-stores, search carefully the shelves,
and if you can find that "incendiary" work
there, Cowper's poems, with the "fanatical"
words:
"I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews, bought and sold, have ever earned.
No! dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds than fasten them on him I"
If you  find such "accursed abolition trash"
upon his shelves, hang the bookseller at the
nearest lamp-post, and burn his whole lot of
"fanatical, incendiary stuff" by the hands of
the common hangman. It will be a salutary
caution to others. You can not sustain your
institution in any other way.
The Kentucky slaveholders have just driven
thirty-six industrious, worthy citizens out of
284 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPIIY.    285
the State because they disapproved of slavery.
Hiow could they do otherwise if they are determined to hold on to slavery? In Kentucky
there are but 38,385 slaveholders, and there are
723,028 non-slaveholders. Now if this great
mass of non-slaveholders are permitted to become enlightened, how long will they allow
38,000 men to curse the State with unpaid,
compulsory toil? Gentlemen slaveholders, no
one can deny your sagacity in watching over
the "poor whites" more vigilantly even than
you watch the slaves.  Your institution has
nothing to fear from the rising of the blacks,
but you have every thing to fear from the
rising of the whites.
The vigilance with which you exclude intelligence from the slaveholding States, proves
that you are awake to the importance of this
subject. The State of Massachusetts takes
8154 Nhew- York Tribunes, and 1058 New- York
Heralds.   North - Carolina subscribes  for 57
Tribunes and for 44 Heralds.  But even this
small number is deemed so dangerous, that 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
your "vigilance committee" have ordered your
post-masters not to distribute these to their
subscribers. You can not allow your "poor
whites" to read them.
I heard a very interesting discourse to-day,
in the cars, between two gentlemen who were
seated directly behind  me.  The one  was  a
Southern slaveholder, who took the ground
that the community should be divided into two
classes, with a broad gulf between them.  The
one class should consist of the laborers, who
should do the work, and be kept in ignorance;
the other class should consist of the gentlemen,
who should be highly educated and refined,
and who should be supported by the toil of the
laborers.  "Educate the plow-boy," said he,
I quote his words, "and you make him discontented with his lot."  Such is the philosophy
of Slavery.
On the other hand the philosophy of freedom
says: "Educate the plow-boy, and you ennoble him as a man;  and you ennoble his
honorable calling of agriculture; you increase
286 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   287
his power of developing wealth from the soil;
you elevate him from a mere animal drudge to
an intellectual Cincinnatus."
Now can any man doubt which of these two
principles will most enrich  and embellish  a
nation, searching out its hidden resources of
wealth, rearing beautiful villages and tasteful
cottages with ornamental gardens and yards;
inciting the whole population to industry, constructing ships, building manufactories, inventing machinery, and sprinkling the landscape
with schools and academies and colleges and
churches? Can there be any comparison instituted between enlightened Massachusetts and
the semi-barbaric Carolinas? In every conceivable thing, Massachusetts is in advance of them
both united; in painting and statuary, architecture, intellectual culture, social polish and refinement, manufactures, industrial and ornamental, agriculture, wealth, commerce, and
military power. No intelligent man can doubt,
that Massachusetts could now, in case of war,
alone, with her material and pecuniary reolirces, -overpower both of the Carolinias. 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
If there be any sentiment which is treason to
humanity, which is suicidal to material welfare,
and traitorous to the whole spirit of our institutions, it is the assertion that, by law and
violence, we are to keep one portion of our
countrymen debased in body and mind, that
the other portion may live upon their toil. If
there be any sentiment which  the American
should repel with infinite loathing, it is this.
Shall this foul Harpy, driven from every other
spot of the civilized world, which can find no
resting place for its polluting foot in England,
France, Prussia-not even in Austria or Russia
-come and light on our flag-staff, and build its
nest, and rear its young, in the folds of the
stars and stripes?
We often hear it said, that gentlemen at the
South can not emancipate their slaves without
reducing themselves to beggary.   There  is
some unaccountable delusion in the idea, that
emancipation is the loss, the destruction, the
annihilation of the laborer. Emancipation is
simply an idea, a principle of political economy, which, in practice, substitutes wages for
288 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   289
the lash.  As the sun rises, on the morning of
emancipation, the cotton-fields of the planter
have undergone no visible change. The planters' house stands as it stood the night before.
The  fields  are white  with their  beautiful,
snowy garniture. The cottonl-gin is there, the
negro cabins are there, and even all the little
ebony children, tottling about the doors.
Emancipation has not broken a cart, a plow,
or a hoe. It has not palsied an arm, or weakened a muscle, or impoverished a single acre
of ground. The plantation is exactly as it was,
not having lost one single element or particle
of its wealth or productive power.
The laborers go out to work, allured by
money before their eyes, instead of stripes upon
their back. There is no sense, absolutely none
at all, in pretending that the cultivators of
cotton will be reduced to beggary, because, like
honest men, they pay their laborers fair wages,
as the cultivators of wheat and hay, pay
their laborers, all over Europe and America.
Emancipation is simply paying men wages
13 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
for their work, and allowing them to work for
those who will pay them best.  There is nothing destructive in that. The slave, impelled by
wages, does double work, and receives increased pay. His tact and ingenuity are cultivated; his ambition excited, and he rises from
the condition of a brute, to that of a man.
A planter owns fifty negroes; and there are
less than eight thousand in the United States
who own more than that number. Driven to
the field by compulsory labor, these negroes
cost him, to feed, clothe, and house them, ten
cents a day. They are lazy of course; sham
sickness when they can; break every tool
which can conveniently be broken, and refuse
to adopt any improvements which will expedite work.   The planter decides to emancipate
them; that is, he introduces a new motive
power to stimulate them to labor. Hie pays
them twenty-five cents a day for their work, to
be taken from the profits of his crop; allows
them the rent of their cabins, and a small plot
of ground for a garden, and tells them, that if
290 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   291
they can make a better bargain with any other
man, they are at liberty to do so.  This is
Emancipation.  This is that "awful," "demoniac,"  " infernal,"  "incendiary,"  " fanatical"
Abolition, which is assailed with such terrific
epithets. One would think, from what we
often hear nowadays, that the very idea of paying men fair wages, for a fair day's work, is a
principle which must have come uLp from the
bottomless pit, and could have only originated
in the malignity of Satan himself.
Emancipation, instead of impoverishing the
South, would instantly add almost immeasurably to its wealth.   Slave labor leaves a blight
on the very soil it treads upon. The average
value of land in slave-cursed South-Carolina,
according to the assessment of 1854, was but
one dollar and thirty-two cents per acre. By a
similar assessment in New-York, the land there
is worth thirty-six dollars and ninety-seven
cents per acre. Now, it would be far from a
bad speculation for Massachusetts to buy up, as
she is abundantly able to do, the whole State 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
of South-Carolina, houses, lands, negroes and
all. She could then introduce free labor, extend her free laws, and free schools, and her
free Gospel, over the now benighted realm; and
in the rise in the value of lands alone, she
would find profit enough to pay her two or
three times over for her outlay.
This is not the play of fancy; it is arithmetical deduction. The following statement
by Mr. Helper, is as irrefutable as the Fortyseventh Proposition of Euclid.
"The average value of land, per acre, in
New-York, is $36.97; in North-Carolina it is
only $3.06. In soil, in climate, in minerals, in
water power for manufacturing purposes, and in
area of territory, North-Carolina has the advantage of New-York, and, with the exception
of Slavery, no plausible reason can possibly
be assigned, why land should not be at least as
valuable in the valley of the Yadkin, as it is
along the banks of the Genesee.
"The difference between $36.97 and $3.06
is $33.91, which, multiplied by the whole
292 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   293
number of acres in North-Carolina, will show,
in this one particular, the enormous loss that
freedom has sustained on account of Slavery in
the Old North State.  Thus:
"32,450,560 acres at $33.91 — =  $1,100,398,499.
"A reward of eleven hundred millions of
dollars, is offered for the conversion of the
lands of North-Carolina into free  soil.   In
1850, the total value of all the slaves of the
State, at the rate of $400 per head, amounted
to less than one hundred and sixteen millions
of dollars.  Is the sum of one hundred and
sixteen millions of dollars more desirable than
the sum of eleven hundred millions of dollars?
"Abolish Slavery, and you will enhance the
value of every league, your own and your
neighbors, from three, to thirty-six dollars per
acre. Your little tract, containing two hundred acres, now valued at the pitiful sum of
only six hundred dollars, will then be worth
seven thousand.  Your children, now deprived 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
of even the meagre advantages of common
schools, will then reap the benefits of a collegiate  education.   Your  rivers  and  smaller
streams, now wasting their waters in idleness,
will then turn the wheels of  multitudinous
mills. Your bays and harbors, now unknown
to commerce, will then swarm with ships from
every enlightened quarter of the globe.  Nonslaveholding  whites!   Look  well  to your
interests.
"Would the slaveholders of North-Carolina
lose any thing by the abolition of Slavery?
Let us see. According to their own estimate,
their slaves are worth, in round numbers, say
one hundred and twenty millions of dollars.
There are, in the State, twenty-eight thousand
slaveholders, owning, it may be safely assumed, an average of at least five hundred acres
of land each-fourteen millions of acres in all.
This number of acres, multiplied by thirtythree dollars and ninety one cents, the difference in value between free soil and slave soil,
makes the enormous sum of four hundred and
294 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHIIILOSOPHY.   295
seventy-four millions of dollars-showing that
by the abolition of Slavery, the slaveholders
themselves would realize a net profit of not less
than three hundred and fifty-four millions of
dollars."
Satan is, indeed, a cruel master. iHe allures
us to oppress our fellow-man, and then defrauds us, in this humiliating way, of the wages
of our iniquity.  God never deals with us so.
To the above striking calculation, we must
also add the perhaps still more significant fact,
that the abolition of Slavery adds also to the
value of the emancipated slave; for a freeman
is worth, in all the calculations of national
resources and power, more, surely, than two
slaves. The colored people remaining on the
plantation and eager to work, a docile free
peasantry, are worth more to the planter, in a
pecuniary point of view, the morning after
emancipation, than they were the night before.
"But suppose," some one says, "a servant
will not work!'Vhat shall I do then?"  Do
just what they do in the North, in England, 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
France, Germany, and all other parts of the
civilized world-dismiss him, and leave him
without wages. If a man will not work, neither shall he eat.   "But suppose  he then
turns a vagrant;" the question is again asked,
" What shall I do then?"  Do just what they
do in all other civilized lands-arrest him,
place him in the house of correction, and set
him to hammering stone.  If he commit murder, hang him.  Bring him under the power
of impartial law.  When all the rest of Christendom is brought under the reign of civilization and the laws, why should our Southern
States remain in a state of semi-barbarism!
And why should they keep our whole nation
in this state of destraction, periling all our interests and happiness, simply, that they may
persist in the wrong of compelling their servants to work without wages!
As we rode on, deep into the night, a gentleman entered the cars, and took the vacant seat
at my side. I found him to be a very intelligent, candid man, from the State of Delaware,
296 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPIIY.   297
who deplored the evils his own State was suffering from the lingering of Slavery within its
borders. In the course of conversation, I referred to the dreadful dismay and suffering
which must be created by the movement now
in progress throughout the slave States, to reenslave all the free people of color, thus dooming over 228,000 of the fellow-'" citizens" of
Thomas Jefferson, men guilty of no crime, to
eternal bondage.
"A very painful event, of this nature," he
said," is now, at this hour, transpiring in my
own town, in Delaware. There were two gentlemen in business in Maryland, owning, in
partnership, besides other property, several
slaves. After a time they dissolved partner ship, and one of the firm moved from Mary land to Delaware. One of the slaves, by the
name of Charles, a light mulatto, in the divi sion, fell to the Maryland master. Charles was
a very intelligent man, exceedingly efficient in
the business of the firm, and by his fidelity,
uprightness industry, and energy, secured to so
13* 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
high a degree the respect of his master, that
that master, dying soon after, gave Charles his
freedom.
"Charles bought him a small farm. ile became a prosperous man, built him a neat house,
owned a horse, a yoke of oxen, two or three
cows, and fifty dollars' worth of poultry; and
from the produce of this little farm carried supplies, very profitably to himself, to a neighboring market. iHe had a wife and four little
children. Charles was a Christian. The voice
of morning and evening prayer was ever heard
in his dwelling; and on the Sabbath, in accordance with the usages of the Methodist persuasion, to which he belonged, he was in the
habit of preaching to the colored people in the
vicinity.
" Just after the Harper's Ferry alarm, a vigilance committee in Maryland, called upon
Charles, and told him that' he was too enlightened and thrifty a nigger' to be allowed to
live in the State.  Charles, in dismay, asked if
he had committed any crime, if he had said or
298 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   299
done any thing that was wrong, or to excite
suspicion.  " No," was the reply, "but it is not
safe for us to have in the midst of our slaves a
free nigger, as rich and intelligent as you are,
and you must leave this State before such a
day, or you will fare badly."
This unoffending Christian man, whose rights
were thus horribly outraged, was in despair.
What to do he did not know. Where to go he
did not know. It was mid-winter. His crops
were in his barn. How to dispose of his
farm, his stock, and his crops at such short notice, he did not know. IHe consulted friends.
They shook their heads, and said:
"Poor fellow, we are sorry for you.  But we
can't help you. Your presence endangers the
contentment of our slaves, and you must go."
In this state of terror and perplexity Charles
continued, till the day before the one on which
he was warned to leave, arrived. The vigilance
committee again called upon Charles, and said,
in tones of menace, which almost froze the
blood in the veins of the helpless man: 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
"Charles, if we find you here to-morrow
morning, as sure as you are a living man we
will hang you to the limb of that tree."
Charles, in his terror, abandoned every thing
-his house, his fields, his crops, his cows, his
oxen, his poultry, and, taking his wife and his
four little children, fled. Hiis alarm was so
great, that he frequently looked behind him to
see if his enemies were in pursuit.  Not knowing where else to go, he turned his steps into
Delaware, that  he might seek protection of
his former master, who had been in partnership
with the master who had given him his freedom. It was twelve o'clock at night when the
poor fugitive, with his exhausted wife and
children, reached the house of the man in Delaware, from whom he hoped for protection. iHe
rapped at the door. His former master rose,
came down, opened his eyes in utter amazement, and exclaimed:
"For heaven's sake, Charles, what brought
you here?"
Charles, in a few words, told his story.
300 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   301
"But what did you come here for?" exclaimed the man. "You can't stay here. The
laws of Delaware won't allow free niggers to
come into the State."
"My God! my God 1" cried Charles, clasping his hands, and the tears rolling down his
cheeks, "what shall I do.  They threaten to
hang me if I stay in Maryland.  They tell me
I can't stay here! Where shall I go?"
"Well," said the man, " it is a clear case that
you can not stay here in Delaware. You are
liable at any moment to be arrested. But there
is no help for it now. You must stay here
until morning."
And that was the state of the case, my informant told me, that very morning when he
left his home. The gentleman who gave me
this information, mentioned the names of all the
parties concerned, the town in Maryland from
which Charles fled, and the town in Delaware
where he sought protection. I regret that I did
not treasure the names in my memory.
And this is but one case out of thousands 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
One after another the slave States are passing
laws, that if their free colored population do
not leave the State, they shall be sold into
Slavery; while, at the same time, they are passing laws, that if any free colored man, under
any pretense, shall enter their States he shall
be arrested and sold. Mississippi says to more
than a thousand free men: "Leave our State
before next July, or we will sell you to the
highest bidder." In dismay, hoping to escape
this most awful doom which can befall a man,
these persecuted freemen rush, with their wives
and their children, towards the frontiers of
Tennessee, and Tennessee shouts out to them:
"Don't you step foot on our soil.  As sure as
you do we will sell you into Slavery."
There are now 288,138 free colored people in
peril of this doom. There are, absolutely, at
this moment, while I write, over four thousand
persons in terror and despair, upon whom these
laws are falling like an avalanche. They look
this way and that way. But escape is almost
hopeless.   Eternal Slavery for them  and for
their children, is their doom.
302 
SLAVERY AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.   303
Poor Charles!  What is to become of him?
We can only breathe in anguish the prayer:
"May God help him." What a story is this to
be told of republican America, in England and
in France! Fellow-citizens of the United
States, I make my appeal to you, one and all,
of all religious denominations, of all political
parties, men and women-am I doing a wrong
thing in presenting to you this earnest appeal,
which comes from the inmost recesses of my
heart, in behalf of over two hundred thousand
of our fellow-countrymen, who, accused of no
crime, are exposed to these woes? Are these
sympathies for the oppressed, which fill my
heart with anguish, and almost blister my
cheek with tears, "fanatical and incendiary"?
Am I the enemy of my country, because I wish
to see it purified from such infinite disgrace?
The same considerations which influence one
slave State to exile or reenslave the free colored
people, and with many of them it must be reenslaving, for there is no possibility of their escape, must also influence the rest. If Slavery 
SOUTIH AND  NORTH.
is to be sustained, it is the general conviction
that this crime must be perpetrated. Do you
think it will give me pain, in a dying hour, to
reflect that I have plead the cause of these my
brethren?  Do you think that I shall regret it,
when I meet these victims of the white man's
avarice at God's bar, in the day of judgment?
I can not keep silence. I can afford to suffer
obloquy and abuse in such a cause, yea, even
martyrdom, should it be needful. What is the
remedy for all these evils? It is simply for
two hundred thousand slaveholders, to substitute free labor instead of slave labor.   That
one simple act is life and health to our whole
nation. And no intelligent man can seriously
reflect upon this subject and believe that there
is any hope any where else.
304 
CHAPTER  XIV.
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.
As we rode through the State of Virginia,
I was conversing with a Virginian, a very
genial, gentlemanly, intelligent man, whose
name I did not learn. The cars stopped at
Petersburg, where we were to pass across the
city, and take another train. A gentleman,
portly in figure, well dressed, and with the air
of one conscious of authority, stood upon the
platform, swinging his cane.  My  companion
immediately recognized him, and addressing
him, said:
"Well! are you going to dissolve the Union
here?"
"Dissolve the Union!" the Petersburg gentleman  sneeringly replied.   "You  can  not 
SOUTII AND NORTHI.
dissolve this Union any way you may attempt
it.  Chief-JusticeMarshall said very truly, that
this Union would bear a great deal before it
would break."
" But I thought," my companion added,
"from the noise I heard, that the Union was
to be dissolved immediately."
"They are acting," the Petersburg gentleman replied, "like crazy people up at Richmond. They don't know what they are talking about. You can not find two men in the
country, who can tell where to draw the
dividing line. Where are we to find border
States?  Virginia, herself, is divided; Western
Virginia for freedom, Eastern for Slavery. If
neither you nor I die until this Union is dissolved, we shall live to a very old age, I assure
you. The thing is impossible, utterly impossible."
So much has been recently said, and so
earnestly upon the subject, that I have thought
it proper to look at the question seriously. A
-careful general, though ever so sure of victory,
306 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  307
will always be prepared for unexpected disasters. I have, accordingly, availed myself of
every opportunity of conversing with intelligent men upon the dissolution of the Union,
and of the mode, should that deplorable event
occur, by which it is to be accomplished.  But,
I have not tlhus far met at the South, a single
individual in favor of dissolution; neither have
I met with one who could imagine any feasible
plan for the rupture.
I ask, where are we  to draw the dividing
line? Even now, Western Virginia will not go
withi Slavery; portions of Missouri will not;
and there will be nothing like unanimity in
Maryland and Kentucky. And if the dissentients in these States are overpowered and
dragged into a slavery confederacy, they will
compose the nucleus of a freedom party, which
will be continually increasing, until the Southern confederacy shall again have its free North,
and its slaveholding South, as now.
And more than that, in two years after the
division takes place, there will not be a slave 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky or Missouri.
Every slave will step over the border line,
into the free States, unless his master sells him
to the distant South.   Thus it is inevitable
that these border States will almost immediately become free States. Then all their
interests will be with institutions of freedom.
Their laws will be correspondingly framed.
Emigration from the free States, will crowd
over into their unoccupied lands. The determined advocates of Slavery, will follow their
slaves down into the Carolinas and Florida.
This effect will be accomplished by laws just as
potential and infallible, as those which melt the
winter's snows, and carpet the earth with summer's verdure. I have seen no man who questions this. The first tier of border States being
thus emancipated, and united with the North,
the same process will go on with accelerated
rapidity in the second tier. It is no more in
the power of man to prevent this, than he can
prevent the rising of the sun.
This fact is so clear and so certain, that there
308 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 309
is no earthly probability, that either Maryland,
Virginia, Kentucky or Mlissouri, would be
willing to occupy the position of a border
slave State. As soon as they should awake to
the conviction, that the dissolution of the Union
wvas probable, the unrelenting slaveholders
would rush South with their slaves. Others
would sell their slaves to get rid of them; other
slaves, goaded by despair, would make the
most frantic endeavors to escape to the North.
The friends of freedom in these border States,
would have their lips opened, and would speak
loudly. They are now speaking louder and
louder every hour; and their voices will not be
hushed by the expulsion, in a body, of thirty six friends of freedom from the State of Ken tucky.  And then, when the question comes to
a popular vote, you will see the banner of
American freedom unfurled, and these four
States will wheel into line on the side of liberty.
I can not think that there is an intelligent man
in the United States who  questions this.  I
certainly have not yet met with such a man. 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
I have inquired of several of our Senators
and Representatives in Congress, if they could
obtain from any of the Southern members who
are there menacing disunion, any programme
of their contemplated operations for a dissolution, either peaceful or revolutionary. They
tell me, with one voice, that they can not draw
from them the slightest exposition of any plan.
When these men attempt to alarm us by the
threat that they will dissolve' the Union; and
we reply: "The Union is bound so tightly
together that you can not break the chain;"
one would think that they would try to add to
our terror, by showing us how they could
accomplish an end, which every lover of his
country must so greatly deplore. But we can
not find, in newspaper paragraph, or in Congressional harangue, a word which sheds the least
light upon this point. The fact is, that the
moment an intelligent man begins to reflect
upon this subject, he finds himself hedged
about by difficulties apparently insuperable.
The question was recently proposed in Con
310 
TIHE DISSOLUTION OF THIE UNION.  311
gress, point-blank, to one of the Representatives
from Georgia, " How will you dissolve the
Union?"  His reply is worthy of record:
That is a question for us to determine.
We do not intend to give our enemies the benefit of the information!"
In case of Dissolution the question arises,
Which party shall have the Capitol at Washington, with all its vast outlay of  national
buildings? Which shall have the name,
"United States;" which the stars and stripes,
our world-renowned flag; which the navy, the
territories; and, above all, which the mouth of
the Mississippi, that portal opening the commerce of the world to the most magnificent valley on the globe; a valley destined soon to
surpass all other nations in population, wealth,
and power?
Should the South, being in the minority, and
being displeased with the action of the majority,
withdraw in a body, the North certainly would
not surrender to her these elements and materials of national opulence and greatness. 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
Should the Southtdemand them, in whole or in
part, with arms in her hands-then comes war.
How are the two parties prepared to meet on
the field of battle? In investigating this question we will suppose, though it is an extravagant.supposition, that every slave State goes
with the South. Let us look then at the resources of the
SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.
Citizens of the South, 
wealth of the South,..
NORTHERN CONFEDERACY.
Citizens of the North,
Wealth of the North,.
In this estimate the slaves at the South are,
of course, not included as property; for in the
event of war they would be a fearful incumbrance. Exasperated as many of them now are,
and with a terrific increase of exasperation from
the movement now in progress to reenslave
more than two hundred thousand free colored
people, it is certain that they would avail themselves of the first hostile gun fired in the slave
312
6,184,477
. $1,336,090,737
13,233,670
. $4,102,112,108 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  313
States, to rise in insurrection, and that they
would hasten, by hundreds of thousands, to the
banners of any invading army. Would there
be any hope whatever for the South in such a
conflict as this? The North would exceed the
South in population by 7,049,193, and in wealth
by the enormous sum of $2,766,081,371. In
addition to this, the North has a vast fleet, experienced sailors, and the most skillful artisans,
in foundries, in ship-yards, and in all the mechanic arts. It is not speaking disrespectfully
of the South to say, that, in such a conflict, her
condition would be utterly hopeless.
But there is another view of this case still
more instructive. Men in a passion will often
do that which is exceedingly foolish, and even
ruinous to themselves. We will suppose that
the ultra slaveholders of the extreme South,
reckless of consequences, resolve to break off
from the Union, and establish a slaveholding
republic.   They flatter themselves that they
can take Cuba and Mexico, and thus, after all,
make quite a respectable appearance among the
14 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
family of nations. As we have shown above,
the present border States can not go with them.
They must immediately, or very soon, join with
the North. The British provinces, which can
by no consideration be induced to join the
Union, now that it is contaminated with
Slavery, would then find it convenient to unite
with the Northern Confederacy. We are
already assimilated in manners and customs,
in love of liberty, in language, in religion; and
our commercial and agricultural interests are
identical. Montreal and Portland are friends
far more affectionately united, than the capitals
of Massachusetts and of South-Carolina.
What, then, would be the prospects opening
before the North, should the South withdraw?
The Northern Confederacy would immediately
present itself before the world, in all the vigor
of national power and greatness. There would
be first, twenty free States, including Minnesota,
Oregon, Kansas, and Nebraska, with a population of more than 16,000,000. One half of
Texas, also, is certainly to be free.  There
314 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  315
would be then, in speedy union, the six British
provinces, consisting of Canada East, Canada
West, New-Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Cape
Breton, Newfoundland and Prince Edward's
Island, including an area of 553,446 square
miles, and embracing a population of 3,000,000
of freemen.   AVe should then certainly add,
within a few years at least, the five States of
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and
Missouri, with a population of 3,700,000 free
"citizens;" for the Dred Scot decision will be
dissolved in the dissolution of the Union.
Even now the slaves are being hurried out
of Missouri, at the rate of one or two hundred
a week.   Many of the counties are already
nearly drained. The St. Louis Democrat says,
that ten years ago the slave property of the
county of St. Louis, represented one twentieth of the taxable property of the county;
now it is less than one ninetieth. God's providence has announced that these States must
soon be free.
Thus the North would commence its career, 
with a homogeneous population of more than
22, 000, 000 of freemen, united in every interest,
and in possession of the fairest portion of the
gl'obe,'for the development of mental power,
and physical energy, and national wealth. Hier
area, sweeping across the whole continent, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, would extend North
and South, from the coasts of Labrador and
the frozen shores of Hudson's Bay, to the turbid
Roanoke, and the mountains of Tennessee.
This territory is capable of supporting hundreds
of millions of inhabitants; new States would
be rapidly carved out of the fertile acres of the
West, and peopled by floods of emigration
from the Atlantic coasts, and from the Old
World.
But I hear some feeble voice say: "What
will you do for shirts? You can not grow cotton in the North?" We shall do for shirts
just what England does, and France and Spain,
and Italy and Prussia, and Austria and Russia.
We shall buy figs in Smyrna, and sugar in the
West-Indies, and cotton of those who raise it.
%16
soTRs kNI sNo-ar. 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  317
The Canadians do not go shirtless because they
are not in political union with Southern slaveholders.  The South must raise cotton.  It is
its only possible way, while encumbered with
slave labor, of getting a living.  The South
can not eat cotton, or wear the raw fabric. It
must sell to those who will pay the best price.
We can afford to pay as good a price as any
body else.
But what can the South, as now organized,
accomplish on the race-course of the nations,
struggling for the supremacy in all the attainments of high civilization!  The mechanic arts,
now demanding the highest genius as well as
artistic skill, have risen to the dignity of intellectual callings.   Far higher powers of mind
are now requisite in many a workshop than in
the conduct of the ordinary labors of what are
called the learned professions. It is not difficult
to make out a writ, or to copy a formula. But
look at the philosophical apparatus and scien tific instruments of the present day; at that
wondrous power of mechanism, which  seems 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
almost invested with a conscious soul; at
steam-engines and locomotives; at foundries,
and ship-yards, and glass factories, and potteries, and cutlery. Look at the application of
chemistry and science in all the high arts.
Look at architecture and civil and military engineering, in their sublime achievements; and
at landscape gardening in its almost fabulous
power of converting a desert into an Eden, and
tell me if these works of modern civilization
are to be achieved by brutalized "niggers," and
almost equally brutalized "poor whites"?
Who is to perform these achievements in the
benighted South, where schools are frowned
down, where the plowboy and the mechanic
must not be educated; where Silliman's Journal
of Science is an incendiary sheet, which must be
excluded from the State; where the postmasters are enjoined to pilfer the mails of every
copy of the Tribune, the Post, and the Tifftes,
and to throw them into the fire? You thrust
hot irons into the mental orbs of your laborers
in the South, and do you think that they can
318 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 319
compete with the clear-visioned and honored
artisans of the North?
The slaveholders themselves, it is true, are to
be allowed to attain to some intelligence. But
will they build clipper ships, and construct imperial locomotives, and weave precious fabrics,
and lift up domes of architecture, and span
streams as with aerial arches? They are gentlemen! This is work. And, according to the
slaveholding philosophy, work is degrading, fit
only for " greasy mechanics." Where, then, is
there any hope for the South? To sustain
Slavery she must degrade labor, and shut out
intellectual light. The journalism of all free
lands must be excluded; no schools must be
established, for it is even more perilous to educate the " poor whites," than the poor blacks.
Thus, year after year, the South must be drifting rapidly towards barbarism. There is no escape.
In the mean time, our Northern ships will
triumph over all seas. The neighing of our
imperial locomotives, those steeds, " whose 
SOUTH AND NORTTH.
sinews are steel, and whose provender is fire,'
will be heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific;
our manufactories will send their products to
all the  nations  and  tribes  of earth; our
schoolhouses will rouse the mental energies of
the whole population, and, from ten thousand
farm-houses and workshops, will introduce to the
hiomage of a grateful world new Fultons, and
Newtons, and Arkwrights.
Is this fancy?   Are  these airy  visions?
Look at thie South now, and see!  There she
is, a melancholy spectacle to the whole world,
the Spain of the Western Continent; larger in
area thian England, France, or the North; with
as salubrious a soil and as rich a clime as the
sun ever shone upon.  And what is she doing
for the world?  She is driving, with the lash,
between two and three millions of lazy negroes
to work, raising cotton, tobacco, and sugar.
That's all!  And even thlis, the humblest of all
work, for picking cotton requires but little intellect, she does at such an enormous disadvantage, that of these crops, she does not raise one
320 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  321
third of what ought to be raised, and would be
raised, under free labor. Our shirts and our
muslins cost us twice as much as they need cost
us, were the fields of the sunny South tilled by
the intelligence and the energies of freedom.
I do not know of a thing in which the slaveholding South is not far behind England,
France, or the North.  She is behind in agriculture, in commerce, in manufactures, in literature, in the fine arts.  Just so fast as the South
drives Slavery out of any portion of its territory, it seems to awake from its Rip Van Winkle sleep.   Baltimore, Mobile, New-Orleans,
are becoming free cities, and they are developing the energies of freedom.   But enter any
city of the South where Slavery is predominant, and free labor is not recognized, and you
meet every where the genius of decay.
Brethren of the South, I do not ask these
questions triumphantly or tauntingly, but sadly.
Why should your beautiful fields be thus deso late?  Why should you not have lovely vil lages and tasteful homes?  Why should not
14* 
SOUTIH AND NORTH.
commerce spread her sails in your ports, and
the hum of machinery blend with the voices of
your waters, and railroads embroider your fertile acres, and bridges span your streams; and
your presses give to the world the literary and
scientific productions of your fine minds?
Look at England. Look at France. Look
at the North.  How  can you bear the comparison? We may indeed ask, Who reads a
Southern book, or charters a Southern ship,
or wears a Southern coat, or treads a Southern
carpet, or visits a Southern studio for paintings
and sculpture? We might continue these questions in regard to all articles of household
furniture, farming utensils, carriages, harnesses
and saddles, and every article of male or female
dress from the hat or the comb upon the crown
of the head, to the leather which protects the
sole of the foot. The slaveholding States have
slid away from the companionship of enlightened nations, and are still sliding down the
declivity to depths whose bottom has not yet
been fathomed.
322 
TIE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 323
It is often said, amazing as the assertion is,
that the prosperity of our country depends
upon the maintenance of slavery, and that the
abolition of the system, and the introduction, in
its stead, of the system of free labor, would impoverish our whole land, North and South alike!
Such an assertion seems too absurd to be refuted. And yet let us for a moment treat it as
if it were respectable, and then we will open
the door and bid it begone I
Look at the assertion then. According to
the last census, there were three millions two
hundred thousand three hundred and sixtyfour slaves in the Southern States. Mr. Dana,
in his interesting work, To Cuba and Back,
says of the slaves on a large plantation:
"Allowing for those too young or too old,
for the sick, and those who must tend the
young, the old, and the sick; and for those
whose labor, like that of the cooks, only sus tains the others, not more than one half are
able-bodied, productive laborers."
Now, upon this calculation, there are one 
SOUTH AND  NORTH.
million six hundred thousand one hundred
and eighty-two able-bodied negroes at work
in the kitchens, the stables, and the fields of
the South. We are a nation of thirty millions
of people. Is it not absurd, infinitely absurd,
to affirm that the prosperity of these thirty
millions, is dependent upon our compelling one
million six hundred thousand one hundred
and eigtbhy-two poor, debased, ignorant negroes
to work without wages!!  May we not dismiss
such an impudent impostor as this assertion
without  any further notice?   And  yet this
argument has been adduced in the face and
eyes of that West-Indian experiment, which
proves, that if you will pay these poor, defrauded men honest wages, they will do at least
a third more work than they now do, impelled
only by the  terror  of the  plantation-whip.
They will raise a third more of cotton, of tobacco, and of sugar. The philosophy of slavery
is political economy maudlin drunk.
Bitterly as the dissolution of the Union is to
be deplored, and calamitous as that event may
324 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.   325
seem to the general interests of liberty; rudely
as it would shock our fraternal feelings towards
thousands in the South, who are to us as
brothers and sisters, still there are aspects of
the question, far from unpleasant in their bearings on the North. We shall then be, slavery
having been exscinded, a united and homogeneous people, with identical interests; and all
our energies, state and national, will be consecrated to the diusion of liberty and intelligence. We shall no longer feel, that we are
personally degraded by a compact which renders it necessary for us to join the slave-hunters,
with their dogs, in pursuit of fugitive slaves;
there will no longer be any danger, that our
Senators will be beaten down upon the floor of
Congress, or that our nation will be disgraced
bv brawls in legislative halls. The dissensions
which have disturbed our peace for so many
years, will instantly come to an end; and the
South will be no more to us then, than Cuba and
Atexico are now.  We shall only wish it prosperity. It can not excite an emotion of jealousy. 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
If any feasible plan could be devised for the
dissolution of the Union, it is certain that slavery
might thus be effectually abolished. It is possible that this is the plan, in the Divine Mind,
for the attainment of an end so indispensable to
the peace and prosperity of our land. Still
there is, at the North, such a universal desire
for the perpetuation of the Union, that its dissolution can only be accomplished, by the determined action of Disunionists at the South.
Should they succeed, the bells which our Southern brethren will ring, proclaiming that the
union between the slavery-loving South and
the freedom-loving North is dissolved, will also
announce, over mountain and prairie, that the
doom of slavery is sealed, and that the hour of
emancipation draws nigh. Those jubilations
will proclaim to expectant bondmen and freemen alike, the repeal of all fugitive slave laws,
and Dred-Scott decisions, those blackest blots
upon the pages of the nineteenth century.
Every link in the chain of the slave, will at
once be weakened. In droves they will rush
326 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  327
across the invisible line which will then separate
their Egypt from their Canaan, and they will find
no weary wilderness intervening. Even now the
heart of the whole North throbs sympathetically with every fellow-man, whether in Turkey,
Hungary, or Georgia, who tries to shake off
the shackles of bondage and rise up, a freeman.
It needs but the act of Dissolution, perpetrated
by the South, to rouse the whole North to enthu.
siasm, and to change that silent sympathy into
active cooperation.  Three millions of slaves
on one side of an invisible line, more than a
thousand miles in length, will not remain there
long, when there are twenty-five millions of
white men, energetic, powerful, and wealthy,
whose bosoms are glowing with the love of
universal liberty, on the other side, ready to
receive them with open arms.  We  have millions of acres waiting for their hoes and spades.
We  shall certainly protect them;  and shall
honor every man, Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, Malay, or Indian, who adopts the noble
principle of one of Virginia's noblest sons
"Give me liberty or give me death!" 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
The dark border line of slavery, like an
eclipse passing over the sun, will move rapidly
down towards the Gulf, and the docile slaves
of the South, self-emancipated, "bought without money," will spread over the limitless
realms of the North, the East and the West,
clasping hands with their brothers in Canada,
peasant laborers, sowing our seed, reaping our
harvests, aiding in all manual toil, and adding
vastly to the resources, the wealth, and the
luxuries of a nation of freemen, until, finally,
they themselves shall be lost in that vast flood
of Caucasian population, which has already
either engulfed or swept before it the Indian
race, and which is, doubtless, destined soon to
make this whole continent ring with shouts of
liberty.
It is thus certain, that the Dissolution of the
Union, is the emancipation of the slave. It is
possible, that this is the divine plan. Many
who are called  " ultra - abolitionists" of  the
North are so convinced of this, that they desire
above all things the Dissolution of the Union,
328 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  329
not as an end, but as the necessary and potential means for the attainment of that most glorious of all ends, Freedom in America. They
rejoice in every effort which violent men make
at the South in favor of Dissolution; and, with
great satisfaction, repeat the ancient maxim so
often illustrated in the history of this world:
"Quem  Deus  vult  perdere, priusquam  demnentat."*
It is very possible, that this is the Providential arrangement for the overthrow of that
system of wrong and outrage, which is such a
curse to our whole nation. Perhaps there is
no other way in which this object can be so
humanely accomplished; punishing the oppressor by leaving his fields desolate, and yet saving
his family from the horrors of a servile insurrection.   Much  as my  heart clings to this
Union, if our Southern brethren will not substitute free labor for slave labor, and, if by this
temporary dissolution, their families can be
* "Whom God would destroy, he first makes mad." 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
saved from the horrors of a servile insurrection,
and the slave be thus led, without bloodshed,
to liberty, my heart will certainly say: "-Father,
thy will be done."
But the appalling thought is, that, in the
exasperation of the rupture, the South may
provoke the North to war.   The first gun
would be the signal for flame and blood
throughout the South. The reenslaving of the
free colored population, is only furnishing the
plantation negroes with intelligent leaders, men
of nerve, men of Saxon blood, men goaded to
desperation.   May  God,  in mercy,  avert so
dreadful a doom! Fathers and mothers, the
South is not a safe place in which to leave your
children.   There is warning  in the historic
words: "After us the Deluge."
And will you permit me, brethren of the
South, to recall your minds to the fact, that
the "irrepressible conflict" upon the subject of
slavery, in which (ur country is now engaged,
is a conflict which has originated in a change
on your part and not on ours? You certainly
330 
TIE DISSOLUTION OF THIIE UNION.   331
will not deny that Washington, Jefferson,
Hamilton, Madison, Franklin, all the founders
of our Constitution, felt as we do now: that
slavery is an evil, greatly to be deplored, entirely inconsistent with our principles, and, that
its abolition at the earliest possible hour was
infinitely to be desired. They merely endured
the evil for a little time, fully expecting that it
would soon come to an end.  How decisive the
voice of Hamilton upon this point.
"The fundamental source of all your errors,
sophisms and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were
you once to become acquainted with these, you
could never entertain a thought, that all men
are not, by nature, entitled to equal privileges.
You would be convinced, that natural liberty is
the gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole
human race; and that civil liberty is founded
on that."
Now we still entertain these same sentiments
which were entertained by the founders of our
republic. We have not changed our views, 
SOUTIH AND NORTIH.
and are still looking for the accomplishment
of that enfranchisement, which both your
fathers and ours hoped and believed would
have taken place long ere this.  While we thus
have not changed at all, the change in your
principles and conduct, has been radical and
awful.
You now declare that slavery is not an evil,
but a blessing; that it meets with your cordial
approbation; that it is divinely appointed and
approved. You insist that it shall spread unobstructed through all the territories of the Union.
You call in the aid of the Supreme Court to
deprive colored men of their rights of citizenship, thus throwing millions of our fellow-countrymen out of the protection of the laws. You
insist upon the right of spreading your slave
code, so revolting to our sense of justice, over
our free States, so that you may come with
your slaves, at your pleasure, and sojourn
among us, holding them in bondage by your
slave codes, in defiance of our free Constitutions; buying and selling and flogging them in
332 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.   333
our streets, regardless of our laws. You make
new laws, stringent and humiliating, compelling us to harden our hearts against our noblest
instincts, and to join the oppressor against the
oppressed, aiding you to catch your slaves, and
rivet anew their broken chains.
These were not the views of Washington and
Jefferson and their compeers. They loathed
such notions, and so do we. The change is
with you, and not with us.  Do you think that
we shall follow you into the black gulf of such
principles as these? Gentlemen, we shall do
no such thing. When you can raise Thomas
Jefferson from the grave, and induce him to
make a pro-slavery speech; or when you can
call up the spirit of George Washington to
declare that the desire for the abolition of
slavery is "incendiary," and "fanatical," then,
perhaps, may you hope for the free North to
say, that ignorance is better than knowledge,
that debasement is better than culture, that
slavery is better than freedom.
And think for a moment, brethren, how 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
monstrous is your proposition, that we should
allow your slave code to intrude upon our free
soil, and triumph over our free institutions.
If a Turk come to Portland, and, in accordance
with the Turkish code, sews up his wife in a
sack and tosses her into Casco Bay, he will
soon find the grip of our laws upon his
neck, with unmistakable evidence that he
is no longer upon the shores of the Bosporus.
Turkey has her local laws. We do not interfere with them. But she can not bring them to
New-England. And if the Turk is dissatisfied
with our laws, asserting that we are defrauding
him of his "rights" by not allowing him the
privilege of drowning his wives when he gets
tired of them, he must stay at home. And you,
gentlemen, must do the same.  South-Carolina
has her local laws.   So  has Massachusetts.
South-Carolina approves of compelling men to
work without wages. Massachusetts does not.
South-Carolina approves of allowing a man to
flog his servant when, where, and how he
pleases. Massachusetts does not. South-Caro
334 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  335
lina approves of selling pretty girls at auction
to the highest bidder. Massachusetts does not.
Now if a South-Carolinian wishes to do those
things, he must do them at home. He can not
do them in Massachusetts. If any man, with
us, attempt to cowhide his coachman, or his
w-ife's waiting-maid, we ask no questions as to
where the man came from, or whether such
acts be lawful in his own country, be it Turkey,
Madagascar, or South-Carolina. IHe has violated our laws, and must go to the house of correction. South-Carolina is at perfect liberty to
establish such laws as she pleases, at home.
But, like the Turk, she must leave them at
home. She can not bring her local laws to
Massachusetts, and with them override ours.
Will you deny the correctness of this principle?  You do deny it with audacity which is
marvelous   You claim the right of bringing
Slavery into lands of freedom, of blasting the
green sward of Bunker's Iill with the blight
of Carolinian bondage; of annulling, on our
own soil, our own laws, and substituting yours 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
in their stead.  Should we yield to such a
claim we should deserve to have the collar
placed upon our necks, and to be driven to the
cotton-fields beneath the cracking of the plantation whip.
And what will be the condition of the South?
It will consist of eleven States, with but 3,347,148 free white inabitants. A large portion of
these are "poor whites," degraded by Slavery
to a position almost below that of the slaves.
There will also be within her borders, a dark
and frowning band of over three millions of
slaves, ever menacing insurrection, and ever
eager to grasp the bludgeon and the knife, to
avenge the yet unavengedcl wrongs of ages.
Now what can the South do under these circumstances?  Compared with the North she is
but a child in a giant's hands. Can she take
Cuba? Even Spain would laugh the fillibustering expeditions of such a nation to scorn.
Could she annex Mexico?  England has but to
say, "I prefer that you should not," and the
South will not dare to raise a finger. Think of
336 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  387
the desolation ill the South, should England
land a regiment of blacks, supported by a few
thousand white troops, and proclaim liberty to
the slaves. And even could the South annex
Mexico, what is it but an annexation of ignorance, confusion, and semi-barbarism, which
would drag the South even lower into the gulf
of national impoverishment than she now lies.
Gentlemen of the South, matters have gone
so far that it is time that we should look at this
question seriously. I have earnestly tried to
get some idea of the plan of Disunion, contemplated by those Southern gentlemen, who profess themselves to be so eager for the rupture.
I have inquired in AVashington, I have asked
my friends to inquire. I have scrutinized
speeches in Congress, and in Soutlhern conventions, and have read Southern journals, but all
in vain. I can get no reply whatever.
Now I have presented to you the picture of
the Dissolution of the Union as, after many inquliries and long and careful reflection, it presents itself to my mind.  Should this exposo
15 
SOUTH AND NORTIH.
induce you to present your plans, it would gratify a wide-spread curiosity. But the elements
to be combined, in the two confederacies then
to be organized, are so distinctly defined, that,
though you may modify some of the minor details, it is not possible that results should ensue
essentially different.
Truly I can not see, much as I should deplore disunion, that it would be any serious
calamity to the material welfare of the North.
On the contrary, there are obviously some advantages, which the North would reap from
such a measure, compensating, in no small degree, for the disappointment we should feel in
the severance of so many at the South, whom
we love as friends. Among these advantages
are:
1. The Slavery question would with us be
settled at once and forever. All the slaves
would be immediately withdrawn two or three
hundred miles farther South, and that question
would be at rest. We should then have no
more to do with Southern Slavery than we
338 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  339
now have to do with Cuban Slavery. Our
friends at the South can hardly conceive what
a relief this would be to our minds.
2. WVe should then be a homogeneous, united,
affectionate people; united as Massachusetts
and New-York  are, as New-York and Ohio.
Ave could travel any where over our whole
country, without being exposed to the danger
of "Lynch Law." We could express our
opinions freely in the cars, and read what books
we pleased.   And should any citizen of the
United States be insulted in Cuba, in Mexico,
or in the Slaveholding Confederacy, we could
preserve our self-respect by sending an army
to avenge the insult, and to prevent its repetition.
3. We should no longer be in political alliance with a large class of men at the South,
whom we abhor. There are many at the South
whom we love, but many whom we detest.
There are those at the South, who attempt to
intimidate our Senators and Representatives,
by the bludcgeon of the assassin; there are those 
SOUTH AND YNOI-Tnl.
who shout hosainna to the wretches who perpetrate such crimnes; there are those who  offer
rewards for the heads of our most respected
statesmen and revered divines; there are those
who are continually insulting us with threats
that they will "Dissolve the Union," unless we
obey their commands, bowing our necks, with
the negroes, beneath the plantation-whip.   We
endure fellowship with such men, only from
our attachment to those residing among them,
who are different. It would grieve us to be
separated from our friends; but there would be
great comfort in being able to say to those who
are not our friends: " WVe withdraw from you
our national fellowship.  Henceforth you shall
be to us but as Cuban men, and as Mexicans."
4. We should escape that infinite mortification which we now  encounter when traveling
in foreign lands. Throughout Christendom,
Slavery is the great disgrace of the United
States.  I was once traveling on the Rhine.
An Austrian gentleman, seated by my side,
learning that I was from America, inquired:
340 
TilE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  341
" Is it really true, my dear sir, that in America they sell men, women, and children, in the
markets, as wve do pigs?  And is it true, that
bloated debauchees can1 buy pretty, Chlristian
girls at auction —for-for-for what they  call
f/2icy gi, ls?"
"Yes, sir," I replied, "it is!"
And I added not a word, about "The queen
of the world, and the child of the skies," or
about " The land of the free, and the home of
the brave."
Should this Union be dissolved, I shall wish
to go to Germany immnediately, and hunt up
that Austrian officer, and entice him to ask that
question again.  Hlow would my heart exult in
saving   "N o, sir; thlank Heaven, no, sir! My country is the land of liberty, not of Slavery.  The
stars and stripes float over a nation of freemen.
Slaves can not breathe in America.
' If their lungs
Receive our air, that nmomrent they are free;
Thlley touch our country, and their shackles fll.'" 
SOUTH AND NOPRTH.
5. We should have no more disgraceful
squabbles in Congress, expending millions of
money in quarreling over the Slavery question; our mails would no longer be pilfered in
searching for papers, or pamphlets, or letters,
advocating freedom.   Our  political journals
could circulate as free as the winds which sweep
our hills and prairies. The only element of
national discord would be removed, and having
once doubled the stormy cape of Disunion, our
national ship, with all her canvas spread, would
bound over the billows of Pacific seas.
Such are the advantages the North would
find in Disunion.   "Why  then," some one
inquires, "is it not best to adopt this measure?
We are so strong at the North, we can cut off
the South, if we please. If the limb be so diseased that it can not be cured, amputation had
better be performed."
It certainly would be much better to adopt
this measure, than to live in such a state of
warfare as now exists.  But when we remember, that there are only two hundred thousand
342 
TIIE IDISSOLUTION OF TIIE UNION.   313
men who make all the trouble; and, that if any
power of "moral suasion" can be brought to
bear upon them, so that they can be induced to
pay their laborers honest wages, all our discord
is at an end, it does seem absurd that this
Union, formed with so much care, and promising such blessings to the world, should be dismembered through the avarice and the folly of
such a trivial band of mischief-makers.  We
cling tenaciously to the Union, ever hoping
that this obstacle to our progress, so contemptible in its character, may soon be removed.
I once heard of a train oL cars being stopped
by grasshoppers. They lit in such numbers
upon the rails, that, crushed by the locomotive,
they so greased the track, that the ponderous
engine could not move. The obstruction, real
as it was, struck every one as supremely ridiculous. Shall the United States of America be
arrested in their glorious career, by two hundredl thousand slaveholders who  insist upon
flogging instead of paying their servants? It
is ridiculous. 
SOUTIH AND,TORTh.
There is no foundation, whatever, for the
notion, that the millions of intelligc,ent, energ,etie, enterprising freemen, thle hutim of whose
industry rises like an anthem from all the
States of the North and the West, are dependent for their prosperity upon political union
with a few thousand slaveholders, who drive
some million and a half of negroes to unpaid
toil.  England is in prosperity, France is in
prosperity, Canada is prosperous, though not
politically  connected  with  the  slaveholding
States of the Southl. And so might the free
North be in a state of prosperity such as she
has never known before.
Indeed, in ease of dissolution, I can hardly
conceive it possible  that war  should  arise.
The  Nortlih never threatens disunion; never
thinks of withdrawing.  It is the South alone
which deafens the ear with  these  menaces.
They threaten to withdraw from  the United
States. Surely they do not expect to drive
thie North out of the United States.  If the
South, a feeble and impoverished band, in the
3E-44 
TIE DISSOLUTION OF TIE  UNION.  345
extreme minority, abandon us, they can not,
Samson-like, drag the Capitol and thle territories, and thle Navy, with them.  The material wealth of the United States remains where
it was, subject to its executive authority. Will
those in revolt demand a share of this wealth?
AVe shall say:  "It belongs  to  the United
States, and we have neither the right nor the
inclination to surrender it to any body."   Will
they endeavor to wrest it from us by force?
It  would, indeed, be  "Quixotic  Chivalry,"
even for six millions of people, to provoke
the ire of thirteen millions; particularly when
these six millions are encumbered by three
millions of slaves, watching for an opportunity
to rise, and march to freedom through a Recl
Sea.  You would not attack us, brethren of the
South.  And we should not attack you.  You
would have nothing which we should want.
You sometimes speak of the attachment of
your slaves for their owners, and intimate that,
in case of war, you could arm them to fight
your battles.  Surely, you will not' expect in           15* 
SOUTIH AND NORTIIH.
telligent men to accept this statement.  There
are, of course, cases in which waiting-maids are
attached to kind mistresses, and in which colored nurses love the white children they tend,
as well, perhaps even better, than their own;
and in which body-servants are attached to indulgent masters. But, from these individuals,
turn to the million toiling upon the plantation,
who seldom see their owners, and who are
smarting beneath the lash of the overseer. Do
they love their masters?   Will they fight to
rivet their chains, and to drive off those who
would lead them to freedom?
These are the real slaves of the South.
They are becoming more exasperated every
day.  The movement now in progress to reenslave two hundred thousand American freemen, is accumulating in this outraged baud,
energies of exasperation which are appalling.
Many a freeman, whose little home has been
broken up; whose wife and children have beenii
torn from him, and who has been driven back
upon the plantation, there to toil in life-lolng
346 
TIEE DISSOLUTION OF TIUE UNION. 347
Slavery, is goaded to madness. His hour of
vengeance will come! And terrible will it be.
Who can blame him?
No! the South has nothing to hope for, from
the slave, in the event of war; nothing to expect but desolation, flames and blood. The
South would be even more helpless in the
hands of the North, than Mexico would be
now struggling against the whole power of the
United  States.   How  suggestive upon this
point, are the following observations made by
Mr. Helper:
"Look, now, to the statement of a momentous fact. The value of all the property, real
and personal, including slaves, in seven slave
States, Virginia, North-Carolina, Tennessee,
Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas, is less
than the real and personal estate, which is unquestionable property in the single State of
New-York. Nay, worse; if eight entire slave
States, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Maryland,
Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas,  and
the District of Columbia, with all their h6kd 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
of human merchandise, were put up at auction,
New-York could buy them all, and then have
one hundred and thirty-three millions of dollars  in  her  pocket.  Such  is the amazing
contrast between freedom and Slavery in a
pecuniary point of view. When we come to
compare the North with the South, in regard
to literature, general intelligence, inventive
genius, moral and religious enterprises, the discoveries in medicine, and the progress in the
arts and sciences, we sllall, in every instance,
find the contrast equally great on the side of
Liberty."
A separation from associates who do not love
us, who disapprove of our religious and political principles, who are continually calling
upon us to do that which we can not do without shocking our sense of right-such a separation would, undeniably, relieve us from
many embarrassments, and would remove an
incalculable amount of friction from the machinery of our government.  And yet I have
no personal acquaintance with a single man in
348 
THE DISSOLUTION OF THiE UNION.  349
all the North, who would not deplore the event
of a dissolution of the Union as a great grief.
We have very dear friends at the South. We
are allied to the South by many ties, having
stood shoulder to shoulder on the field of battle
to win our independence. We want to cling
together in fraternal and righteous union. We
feel that the difficulty which now alienates us,
formidable as it is, is not an insuperable difficulty, and that upon the removal of that obstacle, we can come together with one heart
again, the most free, the most prosperous, and
the most happy people upon the globe.
I had just completed the last paragraplh,
when I chanced to open the New - York Times,
and read the following item of intelligence:
"Forty-three negroes, who  have been expelled from Arkansas, under the terms of the
recent Legislative enactment, which prescribed
that, in the event of their non-departure, they
should be sold into slavery, arrived in Cincin nati, January 2, in a destitute condition. They
were met by a committee appointed for the
~ 
SOUTIt AND NORTH.
purpose, by the colored population of Cincinnati. It is reported that the upward-bound
boats upon the Mississippi are crowded with
these fugitives flying from their homes."
Is not this infernal? Can such scenes occur
in Christian America, in the nineteenth century,
and not rouse the indignation of God? Slave
State after slave State, is passing these atrocious
laws, dooming their whole free colored population to exile or slavery. More than two hundred thousand of our fellow-countrymen, guilty
of no crime, and accused of no crime, are
menaced  with  these  woes.   Already many
thousands are breasting the storms of winter,
and are attempting to escape to the North.
Mothers are flying in terror, leading by the
hand, or carrying upon their backs, their infant
children. In unutterable dismay these poor
fugitives have abandoned their homes, and,
shivering with cold, and starving with hunger,
and fainting from exhaustion, are striving to
escape the most dreadful doom which can befall a mortal-endless slavery.  But few can
350
I 
T1IE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.  351
escape. The journey is long. The winter is
cold. They have no money. Infants, the sick
and the feeble must perish by the way.   Many
confined by the sick or the dying can not even
attempt to escape. In despair they must remain and bide their doom.  O God!  O God!
where shall these outraged children of thine
look for help!
Are  we,  fellow-countrymen,  " Fanatics,"
"Incendiaries," and "Enemies  of the South"
because our souls bleed in every fiber throughl
sympathy for these sufferers? There are millions in our land who will continue to feel for
them, and pray for them, and plead their cause.
Menaces can neither turn  their hearts into
stone, nor silence their lips.  They will not be
intimidated by threats of dissolving the Union,
or by any display of bludgeons, stakes or gibbets. Christianity, at the North, is aroused
and will never again be silenced. The heart
of philanthropy is throbbing, with pulsations
beating heavier and heavier.  Literature has
lifted up her warning voice, and political econ
i
II
I
I 
SOUTH AND NORTH.
omy has uttered her indignant cry,.  The doom
of slavery is sealed.  May God grant that the
execrable institution, the last relic of barbaric
ages wlici still lingers among us, may speedily
go clown; but not in a sea of flame and blood.
352
Bel.  K'  
t l 1;.,,.